Can't Get You Out Of My Head
by J-Horror Girl
Summary: Out of Arkham and out of his mind, the Joker hits the town with an intangible companion who might be dead but isn't nearly departed. He can't touch her, she can't get away from him, and so they have to make the best of it.
1. Do You Hear What I Hear?

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the voice. Batman, Joker, etc, all belong to DC and I am making no money on this.

The first time I heard the voice was when I was shaving. I say shaving, but of course nobody in Arkham is going to trust me with a razor, not even a safety razor or an electric, which is a shame because I can think of so many, many, many creative uses for one or the other. So instead, every few days when I get stubbly they send in a couple of tablespoons of mild depilatory cream in a paper cup, the same stuff women use to keep their legs polished silky smooth. How insulting!

Actually, the thought of rubbing my face, stubbly or not, against a woman's polished silky smooth limbs is definitely pleasing, but I was talking about the depilatory. If I ate it I suppose it would eat holes in my esophagus and digestive tract, but while I may be crazy, I'm not suicidal. So I smear it on my face, and if there's any left over I squeeze it in the seam where the door hinges are. The hinges themselves are uncompromisingly on the outside of the door, but the plates that attach them are screwed into the frame and the inner jamb. Sooner or later—hopefully sooner—the metal will corrode and I will be able to break the door out of its frame. Just one of my many plans to escape. Yet I'm still off topic; that happens to me a lot.

The voice. Mirrors of glass or polished metal are likewise out of the question, so what I have is a piece of softish mirrorized plastic like something one would put in a kid's science kit or maybe a little girl's play beauty set from the supermarket. Not that it matters because they won't let me have my face, not my _real_ face, the one that comes out of the tubes and goes on creamy white and black and red. They say it would be counter to my psychological bullshit etc etc. But it (the mirror) does let me see where I have to wash away the cream before it eats any more holes in my skin, and that's what I was doing when I heard the voice: washing off the cream.

'Don't tell me. Let me guess—you were just a little kid playing alone in the park, when a woman wearing a surgical mask approached you. That was odd, but she was friendly and anyhow, you were warned off strange men, not strange women. So she played with you for a while, until you were tired, and you sat down on a bench together. She asked you, "Am I beautiful?" You answered, "Yes." Then she took off the mask and you saw her mouth had been cut open from ear to ear. She asked you again, "Even like this?"

'You tried to get away, but she had a firm grip on your arm. Then you started to cry. That's when she took her hand out of her bag, and you saw she had a huge pair of dressmaker's shears…'

"That's pretty good," I admitted. "I'll have to remember that one." My history is like a kaleidoscope, fragments of memory all jumbled together. The basic elements remain the same, but just one little turn or shake up and the whole pattern changes. I remember my life differently whenever I think about it. I looked around the room. Nowhere obvious for anyone to hide a microphone and speakers, but with microminiaturization a flyspeck could suffice.

'Thanks,' the voice replied. 'I didn't make it up, though. It's a Japanese urban legend. Also a phenomenally bad horror movie called Kuchisake-Onna.'

"I missed that one." I took a towel and dried my face. "I'm guessing if you say 'No,' she uses the shears."

'Correct. But if you say "Yes," she follows you home and then kills you.'

"There's just no pleasing some people." I observed.

'Isn't that the truth. The only way to escape her is to answer, "You're average," or "You're so-so," and then run while she's thinking about it. Alternatively, certain hair-care products are said to be able to ward her off. Throwing fruit at her also works, don't ask me why.'

"Maybe that was it. I just needed a bunch of grapes or something. So—am _I_ beautiful?" I asked.

'Yes.'

I dropped the pleasantry. "We are not on such terms that you can mock me!"

'Oh, please. The Phantom of the Opera's much worse off than you, and he could have had more girls than he could handle if he hadn't been obsessed with screechy little virgin Christine. There are women who get off on the Beast more than on the prince. Find yourself one of them—or as many as _you_ can handle—and cut the self-pity crap.'

"Excuse me? Who are you, by the way?" I had a suspicion about the voice, and to test it I reached for a paper towel, wet it, tore it up, and wadded it into two small chunks.

'I don't know.' The voice sounded surprised. 'I was hoping you did.'

"Why would I know that?"

'I don't remember existing until a moment ago. Until you were washing your face and wallowing in self-indulgence.'

"I find that hard to believe." I shoved the wads of towel into my ears.

'It comes as a surprise to me, too.'

"Do you have a name?"

'Not that I'm aware of.' The voice didn't change despite the paper towels, although all other background noise was dampened. That meant it was not arriving in my head by way of my ears.

I pulled out the wads. Having water trickle down one's ear canals is not pleasant. "All right. I've never heard voices in my head before, and frankly, I don't want to start now. I've always considered it a cop-out plea, because I'm proud to admit any and all mayhem, destruction, and killing I've done is all my own idea, thank you very much. Besides, I've never heard of aural hallucinations that offer reviews of movies I've never seen or even heard of."

'I don't get points for originality?' it queried.

"Not in my book."

'A book which is written on human skin with red ink that rapidly turns brown, from what I can tell.'

"Hey! Let's not get personal here! All things considered, I'd like you to leave."

'Be glad to. If I were given my choice of places to be born, I certainly wouldn't have chosen your head. "Charnel house" and "abattoir" spring to mind as descriptions of what it's like in here; it's not fit for company. Just tell me the way out, and I'm gone.'

"Um." That posed a problem. I didn't know. "You can't just…leave?"

'Believe me, I'm trying. I can't get more than three feet away from you, and that's only with a lot of concentration. If I relax I snap right back into your head. I can see everything you're thinking, and the pencil thing you did to that gangster makes the skin I haven't got crawl.'

I had been thinking about how I would have liked to do that to the voice, if the voice had a physical body to do it to. "This is—awkward. Are you male or female?" The voice was more or less gender-neutral, but if I had to guess, I would have said it skewed toward female. Or a boy whose voice hadn't broken yet.

'No clue. My entire life begins as of about three minutes ago.'

"I see. No residual memories, then?" Even I had residual memories. I felt a little sorry for the voice.

'Nothing.'

"No clue as to what you are? Another personality of mine? The ghost of somebody I killed? My conscience?"

'No, doubt it, doubt it and doubt it, to answer your questions in order. I could give you a chorus or two of "When You Wish Upon A Star," if you like.'

"What?" I was too used to being the smartest and most out-there person in any given conversation. The voice was putting me off my game.

'Pinnochio, you know. Jiminy Cricket, the voice of his conscience. Never mind. What are we going to do about this situation?'

"I don't know…"

TBC, if I get some reviews. TY in advance.


	2. Chaos Theory

"Let me get this straight." I glanced around my cell. It's padded, of course. No bed, just a futon on the floor. A few items of clothing in a cardboard dresser drawer. Everything in the bathroom is built-in or welded down. I'm not even allowed have a toilet paper holder for fear I'll come up with a new use for the spindle. Everything here is so soft. So safe. So dull.

Maybe I had come up with the voice just as a way of combating the boredom.

"You say you have no memory of having existed before I washed my face, yet you know as much or more than I do about some movies. This doesn't seem to you to be—a contradiction in terms, shall we say?"

'Don't look at me, I just work here.'

"I can't look at you, that's the whole point.—Speaking of which, you said you can get three feet away from me. Can you do it now?"

'I _am_ doing it. You think I _like_ blundering into your memory of the group foster home—'

"How do you know—Shut up! I don't want to remember that!" That was a bad _bad_ bad memory, something toxic I sealed up in a barrel and buried deep long ago.

'—straight out of the hospital, and then that older boy pretended he was your—Oh. No wonder you scabbed that over. I'm very sorry.'

It sounded sincere, but I would not be pitied. "I don't _want_ your stinking sympathy! Get out of my head! Now!" _Where_ had this voice come from?

'I wish I could. I may have no memories of my own—but I sure as hell don't want yours.'

This was not happy-making. It occurred to me that it was possible there was more to this than a new phase of my mental problems. It could be somebody outside my head having a look-in. And I didn't like that possibility _at all_.

* * *

"No, no, no," I would have waved a hand at the psychiatrist in dismissal of his absurdity, but ever since the pudding incident all the staff have insisted I wear that unflattering jacket whenever I'm out of my cell. The one with the long, long sleeves and the buckles that make it so hard to scratch one's nose when it itches.

"Not 'psychotics'. Why would I be asking if there were any _psychotics_ in Arkham? I mean, really." I laughed, which made him flinch and drop his pen.

"That's like asking fish where they go to get a drink of water. _Psychics_. Are there any psychics in Arkham? You know, people with paranormal abilities. Come on, now! You've got your big blue boy scout flying around Metropolis, rumor has it there's this guy named Constantine who's been in and out of loony bins for years who has a handle on worlds other than this one, then there's that hottie Zatanna in the fishnets and the top hat who they say does real woo-woo magic. Why shouldn't there be psychics in Arkham?"

"Uh, we're not rated to treat anyone with metahuman characteristics. We don't have the equipment. Why were you asking?"

'Are you going to tell him about me?' asked my inner voice. 'Because all he's going to do is adjust your medication. He won't believe you. And what _was_ the pudding incident, anyway?'

"None of your freaking business!" I roared at the voice, but on second thought it applied to the shrink as well. The shrink jumped. "I am not_ taking_ any medication. They can lock me up here, but they _cannot_ legally force me to take medication."

"Ah-ah-ah," he gasped.

'If you scare him any more he's going to have an accident in his pants.' observed the voice. "Though you'd probably enjoy that. Maybe you ought to reconsider the whole medication issue. It might help and it _certainly_ couldn't hurt. Besides, isn't it hypocritical to promote lawlessness and what you call chaos only to hide behind the protections of the law when it comes to your own rights. As Dylan wrote, 'To live outside the law, you must be honest.'

"What do you mean, what I call chaos?" I was goaded into replying out loud. "I know exactly what chaos is!"

"Maybe we ought to draw this session to a close…" the shrink ventured.

'No, you don't. You think it means 'disorder', and it doesn't. You just like to make things go 'boom' and watch the city burn while people run in terror—or better still, start looting and rioting. You're using the word "chaos" to dignify getting your jollies. Hypocrite.'

"Well, then, Miss-Wasn't-Born-Yesterday, what does 'chaos' mean?"

'Unpredictability. Randomness. And since when am I female?'

"Since I decided it. At random."

'Well, whatever. My point being, that all anybody can expect out of you is cruelty, death, and destruction. Boring! Predictable! Real chaos is creation as well as destruction. Real chaos has the chance of _grace_ in it. Grace, as in the miraculous, the wonderful, the good. When neither of those ferries blew up, that was real chaos at work. Because you _are_ right. Civilization _is_ perpetually twenty-four hours and three meals away from breaking down.

'But people aren't going to turn on each other tooth and nail just become some little man—that's you, by the way—tries to poke them into it. If you knew anything at all about human nature, you'd know that if you gave ten people a rope and said "Pull," three would pull, two would push, another three would give you a stupid look and say, "What?" while one of the remaining two would tell you to do something anatomically unlikely and the last would steal the rope.'

"All right!" I snapped. "That's it. Doc, roll up my sleeve and give me something for paranoid schizophrenia. There's a voice in my head I really, really wanna silence for good."

'Somehow I doubt it's going to be that easy.' the voice predicted wryly.

It wasn't. I didn't refuse medication on the grounds that I had the right to do so. I refused it because it made me _sick_. Involuntary muscle spasms, all over my body. Jerking, twisting, cramping. Tardive dyskinesia was the scientific name for it. I lay there on my futon and felt the tremors begin.

Full-out epilepsy couldn't have been worse than this. God! It was painful. I could take a beating as cheerfully as the next man, provided the next man had deeply masochistic tendencies, but this—this came from the inside out. I rolled off the futon and thrashed around on the floor like a wasp in a puddle of insect spray. My stomach rebelled against the violence and decided to empty itself in the process, vomit forcing itself up and out through my nose and mouth. I could have choked to death.

I should have. I had no strength to roll myself into a position that would clear my airways, but something else did. I felt something move my muscles for me, independent of any of my brain cells firing, involuntary voluntary movement. I coughed and gasped and spat out puke.

'I'm sorry. I didn't know.' It was my inner voice. 'Don't take the medications. I won't push you like that again.'

"Doesn't seem like they work anyway." I mumbled into the wall.

'No, it doesn't, does it? I don't know what's going on here—but since I came into being in your head, maybe this is all the existence I have. If you die, maybe I die too. And I want to live. What if we try to get along?'

"Piss off." I told it.

* * *

A/N: Wow, fifteen reviews in less than twenty-four hours! Thanks, everybody. Working on the next chapter...


	3. Grace

After the injection, two large orderlies dragged him back to his cell and threw him inside. At least they might have taken off the straightjacket first, but while I wasn't clear about the details of the pudding incident, I gathered he was lucky he wasn't getting the full Hannibal Lecter treatment. Something about an institutional-sized can of Lucky Leaf chocolate pudding and a turkey baster…

Then the convulsions hit. Cramps so strong and painful I thought his bones would crack began in his stomach and spread out from there. Threads in the straitjacket popped audibly under the strain, and I could feel a wave of nausea pass over him/us. Then a burning tide of vomit surged up his throat, filling his mouth, his sinuses, his nose…

Tiny black explosions started going off inside his eyelids and the world started getting thin and fragile around the edges for both of us. He was aspirating his own vomit and drowning on dry land.

Less than three hours old and already dying, I panicked. Stepping out of his head, I tried pounding on his solar plexus, hoping it would work like the Heimlich Maneuver, but his chest was no more solid than air, or else my hands weren't solid, which was much more likely. I couldn't see if I had hands. I couldn't see myself. I snapped back into him as if a bungee cord bound us together.

The controls for his muscles had to be somewhere in there, in his head, in his spinal column. He was heavy, an elephant, a mountain, an ocean. All I had to do was turn him over. Something twitched, another muscle flexed. A little further, and then gravity would work for me instead of against me. _Move_! I had no more strength than a wet paper bag, but I was desperate.

He flopped like a gaffed fish when he rolled over. Then he spluttered and heaved and spewed, and I knew he/we would live. The black explosions went away and the world became solid again as oxygen flooded back into his bloodstream. The spasms, however, continued. No wonder he didn't take medications, if that was the sort of reaction he had to them.

Eventually the convulsions eased up, and he slept. I felt him dropping off, and I nearly fell asleep too. However, I stopped myself by getting as far away from him as I could. Not far. Only arm's length, but far enough so I wasn't living his every thought. His waking thoughts were bad enough, so how much worse would his dreams be? Also, I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever wake up again.

I watched him. I watched over him. There he lay, a madman, a villain, and a clown, beautiful and damaged as a fallen angel. He _was_ handsome; the puckered scars that pulled his mouth out of shape didn't obliterate that. The dark taupe around his sunken eyes wasn't makeup; that told me he was sleeping poorly and not eating enough fresh fruit and vegetables.

A mass murderer and a terrorist. The world would be better off without him, that I knew, but I had saved his life because I was selfish enough to want to live. But was I alive? Who was I? What was I?

A few years ago, it seemed like every other mental patient had multiple personality disorder or disassociate identity disorder. An overwhelming psychotic break had splintered…I didn't know his original name. It had splintered whoever he had been into fragments, of which I was one. That would be the simplest explanation: I was what they called an _alter_. The Joker was probably also an alter, rather than his true self, the boy or youth he had been when—whatever had happened to him, happened. The Joker was strong, the Joker was fearless, the Joker was tough. The Joker could laugh _anything_ off. The Joker could take the abuse, and _he_, whoever he was, could retreat somewhere deep down into himself and hide.

So why had he created me? Because he needed a better adjusted, saner persona to handle his new environment? All right, maybe I was assuming too much when I called myself a better adjusted and saner persona, but anyone short of a rabid badger on a bad acid trip would be a better adjusted and saner persona. Maybe I was meant to keep him from getting himself killed, his sense of self-preservation having finally woken up.

The Joker might _think_ he wasn't suicidal, but one of the memories I gleaned from him was of a street on fire with Batman on a motorcycle bearing down upon him, and his own voice muttering, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Hit me, hit me, hit me! I _want_ you to do it, I _want_ you to do it!" That was suicidal ideation if ever there was any.

Or maybe I was meant to be a companion who he couldn't drive away, who he couldn't hurt or kill. Someone who would never leave him. Someone who _could_ never leave him.

It could even be a combination. Often there weren't simple answers.

That theory sounded good, but the problem was that multiple personality disorder had been largely discredited in recent years. Most of the cases were created by the diagnosing physicians out of suggestions and wishful thinking. And who ever heard of an alter achieving enough self-awareness to realize she was an alter?

Was I even a she? Well, I had much bigger problems to deal with than my gender identity. Besides, the ancient Greeks believed women had male souls and men had female souls, much like the Chinese notion of yin and yang, where each half had a touch of the other in it. I could be female until proven otherwise; no skin off my nose.

I couldn't stay out of his head forever; I could feel that all too clearly. The tie that bound us would only stay stretched so far, so long. I didn't want to go back in there. His mind was a mess; part sewer, part slaughterhouse, part fun-park, and all of it inextricably mixed together.

His psyche wasn't a kaleidoscope. It was one of those horrendously difficult thousand piece jigsaw puzzles without a proper rectangular outline, where all the pieces were shaped exactly the same so they fit together any which way. And it didn't come with a picture. Only the last three years or so of memories were clear. Before that—At least not all of it was bad. I'd seen moments of contentment with a girl who used honey-vanilla perfume, pleasure in executing a pen-and ink drawing, satisfaction in buying a new leather jacket. But the bad times outnumbered the good.

What was I supposed to do for him? What could I do for myself?

I didn't even have a name. I ought to have one, something that defined me, like the Joker defined him, but what? Something to do with chaos—like the butterfly that flapped its wings in the Amazon and caused cyclones in Nebraska. Butterfly? No. Too frou-frou.

What about Psyche? He's the Psych_o_, I'm the Psych_e_?

Stupid.

What had I said to him about the true nature of chaos? It didn't just destroy. It also created. Real chaos had the chance of grace in it.

…Grace was a woman's name, wasn't it?

'Hi. I'm Grace.' I tried. Still sleeping, he flinched a little at the intrusion on his dreams. 'It's all right.' I told him. 'It's just me. Just Grace. I'm here.'

Even if I didn't know why.


	4. Three Card Monty, or Find The Lady

'Eat the grapefruit.' my inner monologist demanded.

"I _hate_ grapefruit." I gritted out. The orderlies woke me in the morning when they came to take the straitjacket off and deliver breakfast. Since then she had hardly shut up.

First she had informed me her name was Grace, and then went on to lecture me about how she thought she was my attempt to get in touch with my feminine side or some kind of alter ego—not _my_ alter ego, mind you, because according to her, _I_ was an alter ego too, and that the real me (or the real us) was a traumatized little kid hiding somewhere. I told her what a lot of hooey that was, and that my only reason for getting in touch with my inner child would be so I could slit his throat. _Now_ she was nagging me about my diet.

I couldn't _wait_ to get rid of this bitch.

'Eat the grapefruit anyway.' she ordered. 'Or else.'

"Or else what? What can you do to me?"

'Idiot.' Funny, the way she said it, it sounded almost like an endearment. 'Did you not notice that your gums bleed and your teeth are loose? Your scars open up on their own, too. Not to mention how pale you are and how your eyes are trying to retreat back into your head. You haven't touched a raw vegetable or a citrus fruit in months, have you?'

"I don't like them, and I'm a big boy now—."

'Noticed that when you showered.'

"Will you _shut up_!"

'Make me. Eating only what you want is making you sick. Excuse me, _sicker_. You've come down with scurvy. That's caused by vitamin C deficiency. Eat the damn grapefruit.'

"I know what scurvy is and I know what cures it. Give me some freaking credit for having a brain, will you? And _never_ call me an idiot again."

'You're the one whose teeth are going to fall out. How smart is that? Anyhow, I didn't mean idiot in the sense of stupid. I meant it in the sense of someone who's ruled by his impulses. You do exactly what you want to do whenever you want to do it.'

"In other words, I'm someone who's ruled by his id. This is an asylum for the criminally insane! You're not gonna find many inmates here who are ruled by their cool heads and calm practicality!" Leaving my breakfast where it was, I got the mirror, turning my lower lip inside out to get a better look at my gums. Okay, so they weren't looking so good. I—.

I froze. "Where are you?" I asked.

'Right now, I'm standing behind your left shoulder.'

"Could you move? Wave or something?"

'Why?' she asked warily.

"I think I saw you. Something flickered. Do something." The lighting in my cell wasn't the greatest, so it could have been a trick of the light the first time, but not the second. Pale greenish light the color of absinthe mixed with water made an oval just to the left of my shoulder, sort of face shaped, framed by a shadow like a woman's long dark hair. A flutter. "You're waving, aren't you?"

'Yes.'

"Can you see yourself?"

'I can see—something.'

"Good. You can take your ideas about being a part of me and flush them down the toilet, Grace, because you aren't. You're a _ghost_."

'And you know this for certain because—?'

"I've made a _lot_ of people into ghosts. No wonder the medicine didn't get rid of you. What do you want? How did I kill you? Work on it, and maybe it'll come back to you. Oh, I've got to get out of here. I've got to get out of here _now_. I've got to get out of here so I can get _rid_ of _you_."

'Don't tell me you're afraid of me now, because I can tell you're not.'

"Afraid of you. Hah. Hah-heh-hee. _I can't stand you_. I don't want you here in my head, in my cell, in my life, with your _fake_ concern and your nagging—and once I'm out, I will go all the way to the damn pope in Rome if I have to, to get an exorcism."

'I'm keeping in mind the fact that you're clinically insane.'

I get worked up when an idea just gets in my head. "They aren't ever ever ever going to let me out, so I've got to do it myself. And it's so goddamn boring in here. I want to go out and play. I was going to do it anyway, my get-out-of-jail-free card has, hah-hah-ha, an expiration date on it, I couldn't keep her on ice forever…Do you know what Three Card Monty is?"

'Uh—isn't it a con game or something?'

"Ah, so you don't know everything? It's not just a con game, it's _the_ con game. Bread and butter of the flim-flam artist. Get this one down pat, and you'll never go hungry. I cut my teeth on this scam, but now—now I've refined it beyond what anyone dreamed possible."

'Eat the grapefruit while you talk.'

"What the hell." I tore off a segment and stuck it in my mouth. "It already tastes like puke. That'll save time.

"You need three cards from one deck, the backs have to be the same or it won't work. One and only one of them has to be a queen. The other two—it doesn't matter. And you need a flat surface. A cardboard box works fine.

"Then you bend the cards lengthwise down the middle, face in, so they look like three little mountains. Monty's taken from the French for mountain, get it. Then you practice. You slide them around each other, in and out, back and forth, until get the trick of making the hand work quicker than the eye. You have to know exactly where the queen is at all times." I mimed the hand movements.

"And you have to do it honestly. Well, kind of honestly. No palming the queen and substituting another card. The queen has to stay on the board. When the mark, that's the guy you're conning, when he turns up the three of diamonds, he's going to want to see the queen. If you can't deliver—well, that kind of cute trick can put you in a wheelchair for life—or get you your face sliced open, ear to ear." I giggled.

"I like to call it by its other name: Find the Lady. You see, you see, this is the clever bit. I don't play it with cards anymore. I play it with _people_."

'This room is bugged, you know.' Grace said. 'While you were sleeping, I experimented a little. I can't get more than three or four feet away from you, but I'm not confined by gravity and nothing solid stops me. That's how I found the bug. And you know what else—?'

"Don't tell me. Let me guess. There's a teeny tiny bat etched on it somewhere, isn't there?"

'You'd think he wouldn't want to advertise it.'

"He can't resist signing his work, any more than I can. So he's monitoring me. That's okay, because I want him to hear this. _He's_ going to come and get me out of here. Because I have something he wants. Ya see, he didn't know it was a game of Find The Lady. I had my men get these two special people, see? Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes, all so I could send Bats for a cruise on the good ship Moral Dilemma. Hah. Hah-hah.

"They also got one not-so-special person, because you need three cards to play. Remember that. I had set up three locations, let's call them Point A, Point B, and Point—C is such a cliché. Point J.

"Now Point A and Point B, they were rigged up with a _lot_ of gasoline and some pretty powerful explosives of my own making. Point J, though, it just looked like the others. Point J had water in the barrels, and a low dose of explosives. Enough to blow up a phone convincingly. And Harvey Dent went to Point A while Rachel Dawes, who's the Lady in this game, actually went to Point J. The not-so-special person, the third card—she went to Point B."

'Who was she?'

"Somebody the same type as Ms. Dawes—the right size and shape and everything. Because Bats had to have a corpse to mourn. He had to have closure.

'But surely they identified the body by DNA testing—didn't they?'

"Yeah, but here's where my knowledge of human nature comes in. The alphabet soup shows, CSI, SVU, LO, XYZ, PDQ, they make medical examiners out to be crusaders, tireless in their pursuit of the truth. Bullshit, in Gotham City, anyway, they're a pack of half-asses lazy bums. You think they'd go out on a limb—arm or leg, your choice!—when the cause of death is so obvious and the corpse is such a crispy critter? Nooo! They'll just stick a swab in the blood and send it off to the lab with some hair from her brush at home.

"And this is the cute part, this is where I out-did myself. Rachel Dawes, heh-heh,was a blood donor. Donated the week before the big boom. I needed that pint of blood and a clinic worker needed some cash.

"She's still alive at Point J—or she should be. Plenty of water there, hardly stale at all. MRE rations to last for nearly a year. Spacious rooms, too—but no way out, and no guards to give her location away. You think I'd waste such a beautiful girl, when from the first moment we met there was such chemistry between us? You think that kind of attraction happens every day?

"So there it is, Batman. I know you're listening. _I want out_. You want your lady-friend. Well, I want her too, but I'm willing to concede. Come and get me, and I'll take you to her. You can keep me on a leash if you like—or if you can. I'm the only one who knows where she is; I arranged a little surprise for the pawns who put her there. She can't be enjoying the isolation very much. Your move—better make it before Rachel winds up as nutty as me."


	5. The Batman

Twelve hours later:

For obvious reasons, Batman could not walk up to the front door of Arkham Asylum during visiting hours and ask to see inmate #0801, AKA The Joker, (real name still unknown). Even if he could have come to an after-hours arrangement with the asylum's director, he still wouldn't have done so. Not for this visit.

Therefore, he had to do it the hard way, by first cutting into the camera feeds and creating a repeating loop to conceal his presence, then by singling out the ward where the Joker was incarcerated and cutting the lighting circuit. In Arkham, the lights were always on. From 10PM to 6AM they were dimmed, but never out entirely, because of what could happen in the dark. But Batman was a creature of the dark, and for this he wanted no witnesses.

Moving swiftly and silently through the Arkham corridors, he heard the sounds of madness in slumber—sobbing, groaning, screaming, occasional grunting. Twice he had to evade orderlies and guards, stepping into shadows. Eventually he reached the Joker's door. The lock yielded to his electronic picks, and he entered.

"Hello, Bats." His nemesis' mocking drawl assaulted his ears. "Did ya bring a leash?"

"Joker." He brought out a chemical illuminator and broke the capsule. An eldritch phosphorescence pushed at the darkness feebly. Its swamp-light glow made the Joker's face just as much as a corrupt horror as it had been when caked with half-melted makeup.

"That's my name. Don't wear it out!" He raised his eyebrows and chuckled.

"I ran a second analysis of the DNA recovered at 250 52nd street. There was no trace of genetic material belonging to anyone but Rachel Dawes."

"But you _did_ find anticoagulants and other additives identical to the mixture used by the local bleeding-heart clinic, didn't you?"

"Those could have been injected into Rachel's bloodstream by one of your thugs."

"Fine, then. Don't believe me. I prefer my original plan, which was to break out of here and then release her." He sighed. "Initially, she'd be furious, of course, but once she kicked me in the shins and pounded on my chest with her fists for a while, she'd calm down enough for me to explain that I _had_ meant to kill her, but then I found I _couldn't_ hurt her—I just _couldn't_, and I was furious with myself for having such a weakness.

"Then, after she's had a good cry and a hot shower, and a nice medium-rare steak flambéed with fine brandy—I like it with a touch of garlic, normally, but it does make the breath stink—and more about how I had never know anyone like her before—why, I'd be taking her panties down and she'd be helpi—Ggack!"

Unable to listen any longer, Batman took him by the throat and slammed him into the padded wall. "You will shut your filthy mouth or I will shut it for you!"

"OOoh--Now we're talking," The Joker leered salaciously. "Hurt me, baby! Hurt me _good_." Bringing up his hand, he executed a classic Three Stooges move, poking his first two fingers into Batman's eyes; the Caped Crusader responded with a roundhouse uppercut to the clown's jaw. The Joker went down.

Warily, Batman checked his adversary, finding a large knot forming on the other man's chin. He was unconscious. Picking him up in a fireman's carry, he turned to go out the door—and stopped. For an eye blink, a woman blocked his way. She was tallish, with long dark hair, and—it was only a shadow. He'd been listening to the Joker conversing with a voice that only existed in his own head. Obviously his imagination was now playing tricks on him. He shouldered his loathsome burden, and left the cell.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so it's really short this time, but I wanted to get it out there. More next time, I promise. I may have to take a night off, I've been writing so much. So who is right about who/what Grace is? Maybe neither. And is the Joker telling the truth about Rachel?


	6. Some Inconvenient Truths

Returning to his bunker underneath the skyscraper, Batman parked his new Batmobile and checked on his prisoner, who was still unconscious. Making this new model a two-seater had been the right decision; now he had a way to transport an enemy securely, manacled to the seat, or an ally in comfort and safety.

Opening his door, he glanced around the long, cold concrete chamber, making sure nothing was left out which the psychopathic clown could turn into a weapon. Only a table and chair remained; the room was otherwise bare. Satisfied, he released the catches and plucked the Joker out of the vehicle, dragging him roughly by the collar to the chair and tossing him in it like a sack of grain. The lunatic slumped off balance, and slowly sank out of sight under the table. A moment later, the Caped Crusader heard a groan. "Uhhh. Ow. Owdamnitdamnitow. Oh. SSSsssss." The last was a hiss of pain. "Oh, that hurts."

Something was wrong. He sounded…normal, not like a meth freak on fast-forward. The Joker continued. "If I get up—if I can get up—can you please not hit him again until he comes to? He might think it's fun, but I don't."

"Are you the 'voice' in his head?" Batman asked.

"Good, then I don't have to explain. Same car, different driver. I'm Grace, by the way." The chair shifted. "Ugh. Ohhh. Damn it, his teeth were _already_ loose. Move, legs. Move. C'mon." First one hand and then another appeared at the edge of the table, and then the Joker hauled himself up and into the chair. The effort seemed to exhaust him, for he toppled forward on the tabletop, blood spilling over his lip and puddling under his chin.

Without the makeup, without the green tinge in his hair, the Joker's features were pleasant enough, except for the scars. He had golden brown hair and brown eyes, and he looked open and vulnerable.

Batman glared at him. "Let's drop the pretense. Tell me where Rachel is. Once she's safe and sound, you get to go back to your quiet cell in Arkham. Until then—you won't find it pleasant."

"You'll have to wait until_ he _comes around, because _I_ don't know where she is." The Joker wiped the blood from his mouth. "In an old nuclear fallout shelter under a building somewhere in Gotham, I know that much. The three triangles in a circle, black and orange, that's nice and clear in his mind, but nothing else. He has a very disorganized mind."

Batman slammed his fist down on the table with unnecessary force. "Do. Not. Play. Games. With. Me."

"No more hitting. Please." The Joker raised both hands, palms forward, the signal for surrender. "At least not while I'm driving." With an effort, he sat back in his chair.

"Tell me where she is."

"Do you know of any substantiated cases of disassociated identity disorder?" The Joker asked instead. He was a convincing actor, Batman gave him credit for that.

"No, I don't—and I don't believe you're suffering from it, either."

"Have it your way." The Joker looked around. "This is quite a place—you know, I can't understand why your identity's such a mystery. Fifteen minutes on the internet and I bet I could rumble you."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, it's just an observation. From the fact that you're out there as Batman every night, you obviously have money. You don't have superpowers, so you use gadgets and your suit and the Batmobile, which means you have a _lot_ of money, because stuff like that doesn't come cheap. So I'd start with the Gotham Fortune 500, and I'd eliminate everybody who isn't a single man under forty. I say single because nobody with a life would spend their nights trolling Gotham on for hardened criminals to beat up.

"You're what, six-two, six-three? Something like that. Caucasian, brown eyes, strong chin—I'm sure that would narrow the possibles down to less than ten. Probably fewer than three."

"But you don't want me exposed. It would ruin your 'fun'." Privately, Bruce Wayne was disturbed by how cogent and simple the Joker's logic was. Reese had worked it out from schematics in Lucius' files, but after the Joker's threats, he had quietly accepted a large 'relocation payment' and moved to California with his family, assuring his former employer of his silence.

"It isn't _my_ fun, pal. I'm just wondering why nobody else has put this together…I am angry at you, Batman, and I'm getting angrier by the second. Would you like to know why?"

"I suppose you're going to complain about how you've been treated. I don't want to hear it. With all the things you've done—."

"You've got it wrong. This isn't about me or about him. It's about you. A moment ago I mentioned how easy it would be to uncover your identity by sniffing out your money, which you obviously have in spades. That's a nice new Batmobile over there. All the shiny parts are still mirror-finished, none of the matte parts have so much as a scratch. How much did it cost?"

"What does that—?"

"How much did it cost?" the Joker asked, his voice cold and calm. The idea that this was an entirely different persona was becoming more and more credible.

"Seventeen million." Getting a replacement hadn't been easy or cheap.

"Seventeen million." the joker—or 'Grace' repeated—"while last month a thirteen year old boy with severe cerebral palsy died at home in his own bed of neglect— dehydrated and starved, with suppurating sores over more than fifty percent of his body.

"Nine people were indicted in his death—his mother, his father, his mother's boyfriend, his grandmother, three home-care workers, the social worker assigned to his case, who hadn't paid a visit in person for over a year, and her supervisor, who ordered her to falsify computer records to cover up their lapse. His mother prevented one of her other children from calling an ambulance to take her obviously dying brother to the hospital. The social worker had a caseload of more than fifty children. The maximum number of cases a social worker is allowed by law in Gotham City—is twenty. He weighed less than forty-two pounds when he died."

"Enough!" snapped Batman.

"No. It is _not_ enough. It is not _nearly_ enough. The starting salary for a newly hired social worker is thirty-six thousand a year. Your new Batmobile cost seventeen million. Add another million, and there you have the salaries for five hundred new social workers for one year."

"Enough!"

The Joker was shouting him down. "Then there's the summer breakfast program for underprivileged children, discontinued for lack of funding. How many children out there wind up eating potato chips and drinking soda for breakfast every morning, instead of milk and cereal with bananas? Five dollars each per day would buy them a healthy breakfast. With seventeen million, you could fund it for years—and throw in a brand-new laptop loaded with educational software just for showing up. How many college scholarships are sitting there, if you're generous and make it a hundred thousand per head? One hundred and seventy.

"But you spent it on a new Batmobile—and you have the gall to say you're fighting for the future of Gotham City? Bullshit, hypocrite. You're running a trout hatchery for one fisherman—you. All the nine year olds out there who don't have fathers in the home, who sleep on the floor with cockroaches scuttling over their faces in slums without electricity or heat—in ten years they'll be hardened criminals with guns in their hands, all ready for you to beat the _crap_ out of them—."

Goaded beyond his limit, Batman turned and backhanded the Joker. The force of the slap jerked the other man's head back and split his lip.

"I think I'll share this with him when he comes around." said the Joker—or, rather, the person who currently wore the Joker's face and body, perfectly calm and collected. He swallowed, and the scars rippled. "I believe he'll appreciate the irony. He loves a good joke. Or a bad one, for that matter."

"I—." Taken aback, Batman looked at the person in the chair. "You really aren't him."

"I said I wasn't."

"Then who or what are you?"

"I believe I'm making that up as I go along. I—."

The face changed as Batman watched. It twitched and twisted into a mask of sheer malevolence. _This_ was the Joker. "Naughty, naughty, starting the party without me. Has Grace been telling tales out of school?"


	7. Bruce Wayne's Mistake

"She hasn't told me where Rachel is, if that's what you mean." Batman replied.

The Joker felt his cut lip, and looked at the blood on his fingers. As he spoke, he began to smear it over his scars in place of his customary red lipstick. "I mean, I leave the room for just a second, and when I get back, I find my bestest friend in the entire world, who's more fun than _anybody_ else could ever be, which is you, Bats, and the worst thorn in my side, a _prissy,_ preachy little know-it-all who nags all the time, talking about me behind my back. What am I supposed to think? Huh?"

"While she has an abrasive personality, I'll give her this. She's saner than you. But if you want my help in getting rid of this other personality in exchange for Rachel, I—."

"When did I say that? No." The Joker ran out of blood, but his painted smile wasn't done yet, so he dabbed at the split for more. "I just wanted your help to get out of Arkham and back in the game."

"Then you lied!"

"No, I didn't. Rachel is alive, or should be, accidents do happen, chaos in action, hee-hee! However, I can't simply tell you where she is. If I'm not along you will _never_ get her out alive. We can set out for where I stashed her just as soon as you let me use the Bat-toilet. Can't hang up when nature calls, after all."

"—it can't wait?"

"Let me put it to you this way—it can be your bathroom, or your Batmobile. The choice is yours."

"I'll get you a can."

"How can I put this delicately--I fear it would prove too small for the job at hand." The Joker quirked an eyebrow at his foe.

Practically any bathroom had an array of potentially dangerous items on hand. The medicine cabinet had razors and first aid supplies. Underneath the sink were cleansers which could temporarily or permanently blind. Mirrors broke into glass shards both large and small. The toilet tank had metal rods…The list went on and on. Of course the trickster might be lying, but if he wasn't—. Nothing else could be done.

"You stay here for a moment." Batman cuffed the Joker to the table and removed everything but the fixtures, the toilet paper, and a sliver of soap. That, as it so happened, was when Bruce Wayne made the mistake which allowed the Joker to escape.

It was definitely Bruce Wayne who made the mistake rather than the Batman, and it happened because of his upbringing. For a man born into wealth and privilege, he was unusually self-sufficient, because (ironically) he wanted to avoid become the person he now pretended to be in public--the rich, spoiled, playboy asshole.

He'd learned how to cook and wash up afterward. He could handle a vacumn cleaner and do laundry without ruining everything, sew on buttons, iron a shirt, fix leaks, install a light fixture, and pick up after himself. During the years he spent searching for himself abroad, he learned how to live off the land if necessary, how to survive in prison, how to fight--but he had never been called upon to change a roll of toilet paper.

The spindles of most domestic toilet paper holders were usually made of two pieces of plastic which telescoped together so they could be popped in and out easily. The tension needed to keep the spindle in the sockets was supplied by a small wire coil. Bruce Wayne never gave the spindle a thought, so Batman left it where it was.

Returning to his prisoner, he unlocked the cuff and marched him to the bathroom. "Five minutes, and I frisk you when you're done."

"If you're going to do a full body-cavity search, I demand a chaperon--or else buy me dinner first."

Batman shoved the Joker inside, and closed the door--another mistake, but not as bad as leaving the spindle in place.

* * *

The sight of the toilet paper holder made me smile a very wide and happy grin. Upon sitting down, I quietly popped the spindle out and took it apart. There wasn't a trace of rust on the coil; it was new and strong. Perhaps six inches long if uncoiled and straightened, it wasn't large at all, but when you're as imaginative and resourceful as I am, it doesn't need to be.

Compressing it between thumb and forefinger, I considered where I might hide it on my person. It would easily fit my little finger like a ring, but that was too conspicuous. Hiding it in my hair was out for the same reason. Although I doubted Batman would go so far as to strip search me, I didn't want it stashed anywhere inaccessible, so I put it in my mouth, between cheek and tongue.

'Damn it, I knew you were up to something!' Grace swore. 'And I can't warn him. Not that he deserves any favors from me, but I don't want you loose in the general population.'

_"_Want to keep me all to yourself, do you? That's flattering." Talking too much was out of the question, as moving my mouth made the spring slip, and I didn't want to give the game away. _You can hear me if I just think, can't you?_ I asked her.

'Yes. I can hear you.' she replied.

_You're getting stronger, aren't you?_

'Yes.'

_I don't like this development._

'Well, that's your tough luck.'

* * *

A/N: Another short one, but I took last night off so I definitely wanted to post tonight. More tomorrow! Plus I got the lovely shooting script hardcover book at Borders for 30 percent off--and surprise: When you take the dust jacket off, there's a full color photo of You Know Who staring you in the eye.


	8. Baiting Bats

He patted me down when I came out of the bathroom wiping my hands on the drab Arkham scrubs. No style at all, those things. I was really looking forward to getting back in my own clothes, I mean, when you're dressed right, you feel better about yourself. You're wittier, more handsome, more creative—you just feel more at home in your skin.

'I know just what you mean.' Grace commented. 'I don't remember how I know, but I know.'

Meanwhile Bats grabbed a handful of my shirt and growled, "Don't try anything," while he dragged me back in the bathroom and took the lid off the toilet tank with the other hand.

"I'm more concerned about _your_ trying something." I quipped, the spring distorting my voice a little. Making suggestive comments to him obviously poked him somewhere close to home. His mouth hardened and his eyes scowled. _Little homophobia there, Bats? Have an attraction somewhere that you're ashamed of?_ Not to me, of course. I turned his stomach. But someone else, now…He was such fun.

'It is kind of funny watching that. He's so uptight I bet he doesn't even fart.' Grace observed.

_I get the impression you don't like him very much. Why is that?_

'Hah! All of a sudden you're interested in something I have to say?'

Bats was checking the innards of the tank, no doubt to see if I'd pilfered any of it. _No, no, I'm so angelic I'm growing a halo. And I will continue to be so until you take your eyes off me just for a few seconds_.

'Oh, please.' I could hear an eyeroll in her mental voice.

"All right," he rasped. "Now Rachel." He propelled me back to the Batmobile. By that time I had worked the coil in my mouth to a spot where it would stay put.

Time for more fun. "So, Bats. How's Harvey doing? He's not dead, he's not in jail, and he's for sure not in Arkham, I'd have heard about it if he were. It's like he just dropped off the face—heh-hee, off _both_ faces of the earth. Or have both his faces dropped off?"

"Shut up." He popped the door on his machine and thrust me inside. "Put your hands on the armrests and your feet in line with them." I was still being good, so I did. Restraints snapped into place around my wrists and ankles. "Ooooh, you are one freaky date, Bats!"

"Enough! Talk to yourself if you have to run your mouth. All I want to hear from you are directions to where you have Rachel."

"By myself, you mean Grace?"

"Call it whatever you please."

"Okay. Piedmont and 112th." The heart of the Narrows, which on a good day (what I called a good day, with fatal shootings in broad daylight) made downtown Darfur seem tame. I loved it.

'I wouldn't be surprised if he had Dent in a clinic in Switzerland undergoing massive facial reconstruction. He has the money for it.' Grace speculated. She sounded disgusted.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

'He has the money for that bunker and this little jalopy, doesn't he? I wonder what de-scarring treatments would do for you…'

"Not on the docket for me, sweetheart. As I am, my outside matches my inside. That's why I did it."

'That's as good an explanation as any, I guess.'

From whizzing along underground, we now emerged onto the streets of Gotham City. Sodium vapor lights gave off their Halloween-orange glow. "Anyhow, even if he does get Harvey's face all put back together again, it won't fix him. Hah-hah-ha… Not even getting his precious fiancée back would do that. There's just no getting toothpaste back in the tube; I should know…So you think Bats has money? I suppose he'd have to. He thinks he has only one rule, and that's 'Thou shalt not kill, not even whacked-out psycho loonies', but actually he has lots. Don't steal, don't hit girls—."

'He hit me because I was telling him off, although technically he was hitting you.'

"Really? Well, aren't _you_ just the testicle-pickling shrew, then. What could you have said to him?"

'I criticized how he chose to spend his money to "better" Gotham. What kind of person with millions to throw at Gotham's problems would sit down and mull over all the ways he could do good with it, only to come up with, "I know, I'll dress up as a bat and go beat up people I don't approve of."? Seriously?'

That made me laugh for quite a long time. Finally I reeled it in. "Oho. Hoo-hoo. Ah-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha… Damn, I think I'm beginning to like you. You see, _you_ are thinking like a sane and rational person, which he isn't. He's a lot closer to being me than he thinks. You see, I blow up things and set fires, and yes, kill people, because I'm a sick freak who has fun doing it. Batman blows up things and beats up on people while telling himself he's making the world a better place by doing it, but really, it's because he gets a perverse pleasure out of it. If he didn't love it, he wouldn't do –Gutch!" Bats reached over and just about smashed my nose in. It didn't break, but it did start bleeding impressively.

"Oh, good. More paint." Knowing how it disturbed him, I decided to put bloody rings around my eyes this time. I had to bend down to get the blood on my fingers, as my hands weren't going anyplace. "Wrong color, but it's better than nothing."

"You do not have the right to judge me." Batman growled.

"Who better? As soon as there was a you, there had to be a me. That's simple physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. But you know something?" I laughed. "I'm not going to be the last. Even if you do put me back in Arkham and somehow fix Harvey, you're going to find lots of smaller freaks who were just going through life not knowing what they were, who they were, until you came along. You won't be able to turn around in Gotham City without tripping over some geek in a costume with a name. There'll be women in the game too, you can count on it, as beautiful as sin and as bad as a teenage boy could ever dream of. But I'm the first and I will _always_ be the worst."

"If I thought that," Batman said, stick firmly up his butt as usual, "I would put this costume away forever tonight."

"That's never gonna happen." I shook my head. "Carnivores drink milk when they're first born, but once they start eating meat, their metabolisms change, and they can't digest milk anymore."

'Excuse me for sounding ignorant, but given that the hero in this little war you two have going is only marginally saner than the villain. why are you two fighting?' Grace asked. 'What are you fighting for, exactly?'

"It's something to do." I told her.

'A plague on _both_ your houses.' she said, with as much passion as Shakespeare could ever have wanted that line delivered.

"


	9. Cavalier Park

A/N: Sorry this took so long. I caught a cold and spent several days basically just sleeping and blowing my nose.

Also, I have to thank Lone Warrior2 for pointing out something I hadn't explained—that Harvey/Two-face is alive in this story. Yes, I knew he had died at the end of the movie, but since this is a superhero/comicbook universe, death is at best a transitory condition. Two-face has too long a history to stay dead.

Lone, I know I told you to expect mirrors, but they'll have to wait until next chapter. Anyhow, on with the story!

* * *

'Damn it,' Grace swore. 'I can get a little further away from you, but not nearly far enough.'

"How far?" I asked, curious about her expanding capabilities.

'Six feet, which is twice as far as yesterday. But,' she said, sounding more optimistic, 'if the distance keeps doubling everyday, by the end of the month I'll be out of the solar system, which would suit me just fine.'

"If you're right about being an 'alter' or whatever you called it, then you're part of me, and you'll never be able to get away completely." I wasn't sure if that was good or bad at this point. I was starting to see certain advantages to having Grace around.

'Well, if you're right, and I'm the ghost of somebody you killed, then you may well be stuck with me permanently,' she retorted. 'Usually a specter is supposed to hang around until the murderer is driven insane with guilt, and—.'

"Hee—hee. Aha-hah-ha." I hooted. "Good luck with that!"

'Yeah,' she replied. 'You're already insane and you feel no guilt whatsoever. I don't think there's anything I can say or do to change that.'

"Don't let me stop you from trying," I told her. "I'm always up for a laugh." Looking out the window, I observed, "We're almost there. Cavalier Park. Did you ever go there, Bats, or was it too downscale for your blue-blood? I bet your folks took you to Five Pennants instead."

Piedmont and 112th was a very special address, or it had been once. Cavalier Park, Gotham City's answer to Coney Island. Like Coney Island, its heyday, back in the days of bathtub gin, flappers, and dancing the Charleston, was long gone. In fact, it had been closed since 1990.

"That's where I got these scars," I remembered, "I was riding on the Rocketship with my mother when a cable snapped and hit us. I guess you could say I was lucky; I only got the tail end of it, and you can see what it did to me. But my mom—she got the brunt of it. Her head—." This was difficult for me to talk about. I started choking up—me, choking up!—with tears.

"She was decapitated completely, and her head—landed right in my lap. It was horrible, most of all because she didn't die right away. Her eyes focused on mine, and her lips moved." I wiped my streaming eyes on my shoulder, as my hands were still fastened down. "No sound came out, but I knew what she was saying. She was saying my name."

'That would be enough to mess anyone up for life,' Grace said, sympathetically, 'and you're completely sincere. The problem is, every time you relate how you got your scars, every way you describe it, you're always sincere—or almost always. It's always the truth—but the truth is always different.'

Doing my best Bugs Bunny impression, I said, "Ain't I a stinker?"

"Yes." commented Bats tersely, "and I've put up with a lot from you tonight, from both of your personalities, a lot more than I would otherwise, for Rachel's sake. If it turns out that you've been lying to me, you'll find out how far I can go without breaking my one rule."

"Promises, promises."

The gates weren't just chained and locked, they were welded shut, but Bats didn't bother getting out to check. He just mowed them down.

That made me laugh. "Has it ever occurred to you that your approach might lack subtlety?" I asked him.

'And how.' sniffed Grace.

"Says the man who blew up Gotham General Hospital," he snarled.

"Yes, but I was quiet going in." I pointed out. "You, on the other hand, came in like a platoon of storm troopers and have, as a result, attracted the attention of the locals, including, if I am any judge—and I am quite a good judge of these things—the neighborhood crack house operators as well as several persons who are running the local PCP manufacturing plant. And I am neither dressed nor armed for the occasion, besides being shackled in place here."

"Where do we go from here?" he asked.

"We have to get out and ride the 'Howl-o-ween House o'Horrors' ride to the Mummy's Tomb, stop there and take the maintenance access shaft. I've rigged up a line to power it. However, that won't do you any good if you don't know how to disarm the traps in the passage."

"I'll take my chances."

"One of the traps disables the fan that keeps fresh air flowing in to where Rachel is. She wouldn't run out of oxygen right away—but the natives are getting restless."

Indeed, the locals were swarming the Batmobile, shooting at it indiscriminately and hitting it with all sorts of improvised weapons. They weren't doing a lot of damage. Both personally and professionally I tend to avoid drugs and drug addicts. Not, God knows, because of morality or ethics, but for practicality's sake. Both substances and users tend to be unreliable. While I am not big on reliability myself, I require it of others. Of course one can't always tell who's got a habit straight off, but since I never keep associates long anyway, that's rarely a problem.

Until, of course, they start to stink.

Batman sprang into action, pressing buttons and barking voice commands to his vehicle. I paid close attention. While the vocal recognition program was undoubtedly keyed to his voice and his alone, the buttons wouldn't care whose finger pushed them.

The car responded by throwing off big clouds of smoke, ear-piercing sirens, and shooting off flash grenades. The grenades went off with a lot of bright light and noise, but didn't do any damage. What good was a bomb that didn't blow anything up?

Finally, though, Bats popped the door and went out to engage them in hand-to-hand combat, leaving me alone in the Batmobile. While I am ordinarily a connoisseur of violence, and Batman is one of the best in the business, on this occasion I could not simply watch the fun. I had work to do.

Moving the spring to the front of my mouth, I bent over and put it in my shackled hand. I already knew there was no way I could pick these babies open…

'Good.' Grace remarked.

…but there was more than one way to get out of a cuff like this.

'Oh, crap.' she said.

Gripping one side of the coil in my teeth, I pulled.

Ow. Loose teeth. Not a good idea.

'Serves you right.'

Okay. Gripping one end firmly between my lips, I pulled.

And pulled again.

And again.

Until I had one end more or less straight.

The end had a nice sharp point.

Still keeping the wire in my mouth, I jabbed the pointy end into the big vein on the back of my hand. I drove it in hard and mercilessly, then jerked my head to the side, so it would tear open and bleed freely.

Soon it was nice and slippery. I tried rotating my wrist. It moved. A little more blood, then—I flexed my fingers.

'I can't believe you're doing this. I'd be sick if I had a stomach.' Grace commented.

"Well, you can't borrow mine." I told her.

My hand was free. Now which one of these buttons hadn't Bats pressed? No, no, no—couldn't he have taken the trouble to label them? Ahah.

The shackles clanked open.

'Damn it! And I still can't do anything!' Grace was furious.

"That's your tough luck." I repeated her own words from before back to her, as I opened the car door.


	10. Acting As The Joker's Spotter

Grace:

Cavalier Park was a rundown rat's warren of boarded-up buildings and disassembled rides, covered with graffiti, filthy with pollution, trash of all kinds, and it smelled like an open sewer. Out there were about a dozen armed drug-addled sociopaths intent on unscrewing Batman's head, but probably willing to settle for someone less threatening.

The Batmobile was a safe place for one man armed only with a little piece of wire and wearing what amounted to pajamas and bedroom slippers. Admittedly, that man was the Joker, but, and this was important, he wasn't dressed like himself and he wasn't wearing his 'face'. The blood had wiped off on his shoulder when he cried over his mother's death. It was dark out there and the scars didn't stand out that much. He would just be an anonymous guy to the gangbangers out there, not the incontinence-inducing figure of terror from the evening news and the papers.

He was going to be filleted like a salmon on a fishmonger's slab. And I would die with him.

'This is a stupid move!' I protested as he leapt out of the car. 'If you want to get us both killed, there are a lot of simpler and less painful ways to do it, you know.' Not perhaps my most brilliant repartee, but I was vamping while I panicked.

"That wouldn't be any fun!" he shouted. Someone swung a tire iron at his head; he dodged, ducked under the thug's arm, and brought that little piece of wire up in an arc that ended in the thug's eye. The man screamed as blood and vitreous humor spurted out, bringing both hands up to his face and, unbelievably, clouting himself in the head with the tool.

When he dropped it, the Joker caught it before he hit the ground. "Hee-hee!" he crowed with glee, spinning on his heel and smashing another assailant right across the funny bone.

That one had a knife. No, knife was not the word for it. It was a junior version of a machete, and the operative word was 'had', because now the Joker had it. "Moving up in the world." he purred, kissing the flat of the blade.

'Guy with a baseball bat, five o'clock!' I told him, seeing a guy approximately three times the size of a taxi coming up behind him.

"Where?" Of course he swiveled in the wrong direction, and collected a glancing blow off his skull. "Oww!" Correcting his error, he—he—.

'Aaaaaaaah!' I wished I could shut my eyes, but I had no lids to shut, nor, perhaps any eyes, so I had to watch as loops of intestine uncoiled onto the dirty midway asphalt. 'Oh—look, do not get any of that guy's body fluids in that gash on your hand. You don't know what he has.'

"Aww. You are just so sweet to me! But as far as spotting goes, where the _hell_ do you think five o'clock is?"

'Watch out behind you! Wherever you're facing is twelve o'clock. Six is directly behind, one through five are to the right, seven through eleven on the left.' I watched as he executed a move like the "En garde" of a swashbuckling musketeer, except his opponent didn't have a sword to parry the thrust.

"All right. That's good. I can work with that—You'll be the eyes on the back of my head. Do you think you can help get us to the Hall of Mirrors? It's about two hundred feet down the first left-hand turning." He ducked down behind a garbage can as a bullet ricocheted off the Batmobile.

'You mean you're running out on Batman?' I don't know why I should have been surprised.

"Hell—o?" he drew it out sarcastically. "I'm the _villain_, remember? That's part of the job description."

'But what about Rachel Dawes? How is he supposed to get through the access shaft—You liar! You damned cheat!' I saw everything that was going in his mind, but making sense of it was another story. Only when his thoughts came together in lucidity could I be sure of him. Memories were never certain. 'That isn't the way to where she is. Is she even alive, you verminous asshole?'

"What language! Yes, as far as I know, she is. Why should I make things easy for Bats?"

'I should have known. Why would there be a fallout shelter under an amusement park, anyway?'

"You know about the shelter?" He was suddenly mad at me. "You didn't tell him, did you?"

'Yes, I did. And if I'd known where it was, I would have given him directions, too.'

"You're just lucky you don't have a throat to slit, girlie."

'Oh, I'm shaking in my shoes.' I retorted.

"Screw this." he decided. "I am going to the Hall of Mirrors. Watch my back or not, you choose." He straightened up and strode toward his destination like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Only Gary Cooper didn't stop to stab anybody in the groin along the way.

I don't know exactly when Batman realized he/we were missing, but it was sometime after we were out of sight around the bend. "Joker! Joker!" I heard him call.

"Almost home!" the Joker said, mounting the steps of the Hall of Mirrors. Unlike the other boarded-up attractions, this one didn't simply have plywood nailed over the openings. It had a sturdy shell built around it, and as he did something complicated to open one panel, I realized why. The Hall was smaller than the shell, and it was mounted on a circular platform like a merry-go-round.

Once inside, he fumbled momentarily in the dark until he located a home-made remote. The Hall bloomed with light all around us, and the platform started to turn.

'If only your powers could be used for good instead of evil.' I jabbed at him sarcastically.

"Without evil, good wouldn't know what it was." he replied.

A/N: The next scene needs music. Any suggestions? (Prince's Batdance and the theme to the 60's TV show are not options.)


	11. Mirror, Mirror

My beautiful Hall of Mirrors was more of a Maze of Mirrors, actually. It wasn't just a bunch of fun house mirrors, the wavy kind that distorted images; it had clear panels and conventional mirrors interspersed throughout, so it was easy to walk into a wall that you thought was an opening or miss an opening by mistake. Add a slowly spinning floor, a seizure-inducing light show, and a killer sound system and one could get seriously confused as to which reality one was operating in. (Not me. I find reality just gets in the way of the hallucinations…)

'What the hell are you going to do now?' Grace asked.

"Have _fun_."

'I'm not going to like this, am I?'

"Probably not." The noise and light were going to attract company, and by that I didn't just mean Batman. The remaining thugs would follow the pretty lights right here.

'All right, I'm confused. I thought you were trying to get away. What am I not getting?'

"This isn't about getting away. I want people to _know_ I'm back." I went to the operator's booth and pulled up a floorboard. There it was, one of my makeup kits. No lack of mirrors in this place to help me put my face on. I didn't need mirrors to help me, actually. I could practically do this in my sleep.

'Yeah, and it shows. Don't let me stop you, though.'

Speaking of sound systems, I cued up the first number. Nothing like the classics: 'I Am The Walrus', off Magical Mystery Tour. How can you do better than the Beatles?

John Lennon, nearly twenty years dead now, started singing "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…"

'Kinda has a whole different meaning now, doesn't it? I am you and you are me and you are he and we _are_ all together.' Grace shouted over the amplification.

I ignored her for the moment, being busy. The white came first. Squeezing a glob of it into my hands, I rubbed them together, coating them. Then I screwed up my face and smeared the base on, not bothering to be neat about it. That way the creases and dimples were left unpainted. I wiped my hands on the scrubs, took out the black stick, and shut my eyes like I was wishing away the boogeyman. Perfect.

'I was wondering how you achieved that sleazy, raddled, leprosy-ridden look time after time, and now I know.' Grace commented.

Now the red. Big smile. Putting it on ham-fistedly, like a little girl trying her mother's lipstick, I carried it out beyond the limits.

Back in 1967, John Lennon sang "Expert texpert choking smokers don't you think the Joker laughs at you? Ho ho ho hee hee hee ha ha hah…" Pure brilliance.

'Eeewwww! You look like you should immediately be arrested on seventeen different counts of child molestation or something. You look _rancid_.'

"Thank you. Actually, child molestation is one crime I've never tried. At least not yet…"

I turned to the mirror maze, wide grin stretching my face and pulling at the scar tissue, "I'm back, ba—Hey! I can see you!"

I could, too. Like an angel of death behind my right shoulder stood a figure like a piece of night, and it wasn't Bats. Not unless he'd taken up cross dressing. The rotating maze caught my reflection and hers, multiplied them, sent them back. I turned. Nothing there, not when I looked at her directly, but upon turning around again, I saw her there.

Interesting. 'I Am The Walrus' ended, and my next selection, 'Welcome To The Black Parade' by My Chemical Romance began.

'You can?'

"You mean you can't see yourself?" 'The savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned' sang Gerard Way. I wondered which of those she was. Maybe all four, like I myself. I mean, for a dead girl to get stuck in _my_ head, she had to have done something really, really bad in her life. It was hell for me, I knew that.

'I see something—I don't know. What do I look like?'

"Well, you're a bit shorter than me, and you've got a lot of long dark hair hanging in your face, so I can't really tell how you look. But you're definitely a girl. You've got on a long dress. Black, maybe dark green, I can't tell in this light. Long sleeved, but very, uh, tight through the torso. _Nice_ figure."

'Is that actually how I look, or is that your libido talking? Although—as you describe me, I'm beginning to see what you see.'

"This is something to go into when we have a quieter moment. Right now—we've got company!"

Indeed we did. Several of the gangbangers had followed their eyes and ears to my Hall.

"Gentlemen!" I raised my voice. "This isn't Bethlehem, it's Gotham, but then again, it's not Christmas, you're not shepards tending your flocks by night and I am no angel bright. Nevertheless, you are called on to hear glad tidings. The Joker has returned to gladden the hearts of all and sundry. Go and bear witness to what you have seen." I raised my hands in a gesture of benediction, then gave them two middle finger salutes.

'You may think you're being clever with the blasphemy, but you come across as just a jerk-off.' Grace told me, folding her arms.

"You son-of-a-bitch. You just killed my cousin!" announced one of the thugs.

"Really? I can assure you it was nothing personal." I told him.

"'Nothing personal.'" He repeated. "Well, I'm about to get real personal on your ass."

"No." growled Bats. "He is mine."

'We're about to have a repeat of the previous scene, aren't we? Only with crazy mirrors, colored lights and overamplified music.'

"Not exactly." I informed Grace, raising the remote and pressing the 'Auxiliary' option. A massive explosion rocked the Hall. "We're going to have it with a series of explosive charges going off all over Cavalier Park. I've been waiting to take this place apart for years. Ever since my father died here."

'When he was decapitated on the Rocketship and his head landed in your lap?'

"Yes, like I told you."

'Ten minutes ago, it was your mother.'

"That's why I like to have a multiple choice past, rather than essay questions…"

* * *

A/N: Okay, it was kind of short again. But I've had such an exciting week. I'm now an aunt!


	12. Alfred

Upon seeing the headlines 'JOKER ESCAPES!' 'Arkham Officials At A Loss Over Breakout' 'Historic Cavalier Park Blown Up; Is Batman In League With Laughing Lunatic?', Alfred Pennyworth did not bother preparing breakfast in the penthouse. He merely glanced in Master Bruce's bedroom to confirm that his employer was not there, and went directly to the bunker once he saw an empty bed and no pieces of costume scattered around the room.

Over Bruce's objections, the butler had purchased and installed a comfortable cot in a side room of the underground concrete headquarters. That was where Alfred found him, not asleep so much as passed out. His cape was tattered and scorched, the body armor slightly melted in places, but intact. No blood was immediately visible to the Brit's concerned scrutiny, and no bandages. What Master Bruce needed most at the moment was what he was getting: rest. Therefore his manservant left him to sleep himself out, and turned to other matters.

For some reason, every loose item, as well as some which had to be pried out, had been removed from the bathroom. That made Alfred pause. Why would Batman have felt the need to remove everything breakable, flammable, and corrosive from the lavatory? It made no sense…

…Unless he were letting someone use it, someone to whom a bottle of aftershave, a mirror, and a towel rack could be deadly weapons.

Someone dangerous. Someone resourceful. Someone who could not be trusted with an inch, because he would take a mile.

Someone like the Joker, in other words.

Alfred regarded the innocently haphazard pile of cleansers, toiletries, and implements with a growing sense of horror which began in the pit of his stomach and spread out, simultaneously coating his throat with bile and causing his skin to crawl. For some reason, Master Bruce had broken the Joker out of Arkham Asylum, and then he had lost his foe.

There had to have been a good and sufficient reason, or what Master Bruce would think of as a good and sufficient reason, but what could possibly have justified the risk? Alfred mechanically bent down and started picking up the pieces. If only he could pick up the pieces of his master just as easily, and put them back together. If only…

How had the Joker escaped Batman, though? As the butler put the lavatory to rights, he mentally cataloged the room. Everything present and accounted for—except when he went to change the depleted toilet roll, and the spindle fell apart in his hands. "Oh, Master Bruce." he whispered, reproach in his voice. "Such a little thing, but Oi fear the consequence will be enormous."

"There is nothing you can say that I haven't said to myself already." Alfred turned to see Master Bruce leaning against the doorframe. It was obvious that was the only thing holding up the younger man, whose face was bruised and puffy. A miniscule blood vessel had broken under the cornea of one of his eyes, the splotch of red looking like a dot of ketchup on the white of a fried egg. "I was wondering where and how he got a weapon. Was it that?" He nodded at the spindle in his almost-father's hands.

"There should be a metal spring inside this. It was there two days ago, but now it's missing." Alfred informed him. "Why did you break him out, suh? What could justify the risk?"

"He said Rachel was alive, hidden away somewhere. Nothing else could have made me do it, Alfred. _Nothing_. But it was a lie. I took him to Cavalier Park in the hope—the hope—." Batman sagged, and Alfred sprang to catch him as he fell.

When he came to, he was back in the cot. He staggered out to the main room, where Alfred was using the computer to review the recordings from the Joker's cell in Arkham and the video of the night before, when he, 'Grace' and the Joker had spoken in the bunker.

"If you would be so kind as to drink that, suh. It's orange juice blended with protein and electrolyte supplements. Just the thing to clear your head and start your muscle tissues rebuilding themselves. Ahem." He cleared his throat discreetly. "Oi took the liberty of accessing these materials while you were resting, in the hopes Oi could contribute some small insight. Oi hope you don't mind."

"Mind? Alfred, whatever I pay you, it isn't nearly enough."

"No amount of money could be, suh. But fortunately my account books have columns for less tangible forms of job satisfaction, and those, Oi can assure you, are overflowing."

"I hope I can keep them that way. What do you have for me?"

"Well, to begin with, suh, the Joker was not dissembling. 'Grace' truly is another person or another persona. Oi ran what 'Grace' said through a voice analysis program, and the results were quite fascinating. The vocal patterns, vocabulary, intonation and structural semantics of the two were completely different. Even more different than you and Oi."

"How is that?"

"Setting aside the pitch of the voice, which is undeniably a man's, there is a seventy-nine percent probability that 'Grace' is a woman."

"What?!"

"It's true, suh. Women and men speak differently in more ways than just vocal pitch. As the most obvious example, not directly applying to this situation, have you ever noticed that where a man would say, 'Oi think', a woman will often or usually say 'Oi feel'? According to the analysis, 'Grace' is a she."

"But how can that be? 'Grace' may be another persona, but it's still part of him. He may think it's a woman, but that's as far as it goes."

"Disassociative identity disorder isn't truly understood, suh, but Oi understand it may be possible. The important point to all of this is that 'Grace' is her own person with her own motivations. She might not have been lying when she gave you a clue to Miss Rachel's whereabouts—namely, the fallout shelter sign.

"Right now Oi'm searching city archives for a list of all fallout shelters. Problem is, there isn't one, the era of outfitting public buildings with fallout shelters having come and gone pre-internet. So Oi'm having to go about it backward, by looking for structures that would have had a bomb shelter, such as schools and governmental edifices, and then checking for specifications."

"Wait a minute. You heard all of what she said. Do you think she's credible?"

"Just because you don't like what she had to say doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong, suh. She was spot-on when it came to how vulnerable your identity is. That's something you've got to work on."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Bruce said, disgustedly.

"Oi'm sure it's not for me to say, suh. As for the rest, Oi understand your friends at Microsoft, Mr. and Mrs. William Gates, have a charitable advisor on staff to help them decide where their philanthropic donations would do the most good. If Oi may be so bold as to say so, it's a shame you couldn't hire 'Grace' in a similar capacity."

"Are you saying _you_ think I'm a selfish bastard too, Alfred?"

"Oi would never say that, suh. But your late father based his entire medical career on providing his services to those in greatest need, even when it meant he had to subsidize the entire cost of their health care. A charity to help underprivileged children would have been dear to your mother's heart as well. You could call it 'The Thomas and Martha Wayne Foundation'. Ah. Here we are, suh. A list of all the fallout shelters in Gotham City proper sorted against a list of all sites which have been abandoned, condemned, or sold into private hands."

"There are only five of them."

"Oi'm not saying that's comprehensive, suh, but it would be much more difficult to hide a person under City Hall or Francis Scott Key High School undetected, them being in active use nearly every day. Also, Oi didn't include buildings which have actually been demolished. That's on _this_ list. It's possible the building may be gone, but the fallout shelter may remain more or less intact."

"There are twelve on this list. I'm sure you're right, Alfred. If Rachel i_s_ alive somewhere, it's in one of these locations. Let's go." Bruce Wayne stood up and nearly fell down again.

"A moment, suh. There's something else. It may be nothing, but Oi couldn't account for it. Oi was wondering if you could explain this."

"What?" The multi-billionaire bent over his butler's shoulder.

"On these tapes from last night, suh. Look." Alfred replayed the scene first from one of the hidden cameras and then the other. Both showed the Batmobile pulling in, then Bruce pulling the Joker from the vehicle and throwing him into the chair.

"Here's one light source, here," Alfred pointed, "and here's the other. Here are the shadows cast by each light source, going in this direction and in that one."

"Yes?"

"So what's casting the Joker's third shadow?" Alfred's finger stabbed at the third unflickering umbra, by far the darkest of the three.

"I don't know."

A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and your congrats. I have a niece. Her name's Lia and she has dark reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, and all her fingers and toes. She looks like a pink rosebud. Mostly she eats, sleeps and cries right now, but when she does open her eyes, there's a person in there! And my sister is doing great.


	13. The Joker's Tailor?

Grace:

'You shouldn't kill the taxi driver.' I told him, in the vain hope he might listen. The poor man was literally sweating with fear, so heavily I could see the perspiration bead up at his hairline, trickle down the side of his face, and pool on the knife blade which was denting his jugular. (It might have been his carotid; I wasn't sure.)

"Hee-hee. You're funny. And, uh, what else would stop him from calling the cops?"

"Please! Please, sir, don't kill me. I won't tell. I swear. I swear on my hope of heaven. You can have all the cash I have on me. Only—let me live." To his credit, he was still driving steadily.

'Would it really make that much difference? Cops all over Gotham are looking for you right now. So what if there are a few more?' Of course, if I could intrigue him, maybe I could distract him. 'Anyhow, it wouldn't be in keeping with your ethos.'

"Which is?"

The taxi driver thought the Joker was talking to him. "One hundred and seventy-three dollars. That's all!"

"I wasn't talking to you!"

While the man apologized miserably in the background, I explained. 'To do the unexpected. Taxi driving is a lonely, dangerous job with terrible hours and even worse wages. They take their lives into their hands every time they go out on the streets.

'They get robbed all the time by people they'd like to pass up, but by law they're not allowed to discriminate against anybody, even if it's a three-hundred-pound gangbanger who orders them to go to the worst part of the Narrows. Kill this guy, and all anybody is going to do is skim over the article and turn the page. Nobody blinks an eye over the murder of a taxi driver. Let him live—and let him keep his money. Okay?'

"You make a good point. Okay, buddy, I'll let you go. You can even keep your money. Just drop me at Hildarose and Vine."

"Thank you! Oh, thank you, sir!"

"And shut up. That goes for both of you."

'Okay.' I agreed, and kept quiet for the rest of the trip. Hildarose and Vine turned out to be a rundown shopping district not far from the Narrows, the sort of area with a corner diner, mom-and-pop stores, privately owned pharmacies, and dollar shops, the kind of neighborhood people get sentimental over while taking their business to the better stocked and shinier chain stores and malls.

"This'll do." the Joker ordered, and the driver pulled over. Without taking the knife away from the man's neck, he whispered in his ear. "I'm not going to kill you, but I can't have people thinking I've gone soft.

"So I'm just gonna do this—." With a flick of his wrist, the Joker cut off the taxi driver's ear.

"Aaaaah! Ahhh!" screamed the driver, clamping his hand over the wound, which squirted blood all over the cab.

The Joker dropped the ear in the man's lap. "There you go. If you get to a hospital fast, I'm sure they can sew that right back on for you. You won't lose any of your hearing, I didn't go that deep. I won't even tell you not to call the cops, because I know you will. Just remember this—Someday I might come back for the other one. And I'll do it by going through your head." He opened the taxi door and slid out.

'For the record,' I said as he adjusted his Arkham scrubs and the taxi sped off, 'I urge you to turn yourself in at the nearest police station or the mental institution of your choice, peacefully, without explosions, without setting fire to anything, without violence, loss of life, or lopping off anybody else's body parts.'

"Oh, come on! Hah. Hah-haha. Hee!" He started around the corner with some purpose in his walk, ducked down an alley, and broke into a loping run.

'Yeah, I know. That's why I said "for the record." So where are we going now? There an exorcist or a botanica in the neighborhood? This looks like the kind of area where you'd find one.'

"A botanica?" he asked, surprised. "What's that?" He turned another corner, surprising a rat the size of a half-grown cat. It chattered at him; he threw a garbage can lid at it, and kept going.

'A Hispanic herbalist's shop which also provides the kind of spiritual help you can't go to a priest for—putting on or taking off curses, love spells, blessings. Maybe they have a little Santeria going on in the backroom, that kind of thing. Santeria is kind of a mix of paganism and Catholicism. Anyhow, I'm sure they'd have something to try and help get me off your back.'

"Now that you mention it, I'm reconsidering evicting you." He crossed a street and darted in between two houses, into a cul-de-sac no one would ever have guessed was there. "You're as annoying as hell, don't get me wrong, but you're good at watching my back, you can be amusing, and you also get up Batman's nose. Also—it's possible that having someone who keeps an eye on the bigger picture on things like nutrition and health could be useful. You can consider yourself on probation."

'So you _want_ me to nag you into eating your greens and drinking your orange juice, is that it?'

"Something like that. To answer your question from earlier, we are paying a call on my tailor."

'Your tailor? Now? With all of Gotham's finest—and I am using that phrase with some sarcasm—combing the streets for you?'

"Why? Where should I be going?"

'I was thinking you might have a safe house or a hideout somewhere to go to.'

"I do, but I have to have something to _wear_, don't I? I can't really be seen out on the streets in these ugly yet distinctive Arkham scrubs. Kind of a dead, heh-heh, giveaway, don't you think?"

'Which is why I would think you would want to get off said streets as soon as possible.'

"No worries about that, as we are here." He bounded up the side stairs of a long-defunct dance studio and hammered on the door of a dusty little shop with a discreet "Fine Tailoring" sign hanging above it.

An elderly man of unknown ethnicity answered it. "Ah, Mister J. Please come in." He held the door open for him/us, locking and bolting it once we were inside. His shop was scrupulously neat and very old-fashioned. It might have come right out of a 1950's era movie—the few signs advertising a particular button or collar were pure vintage, not reproductions. There were a few bolts of obviously old suiting material in conservative colors such as navy and charcoal, and several new bolts of fabric in colors that were pure Joker.

I got the impression that the only client this old tailor had any longer was right there, and I had come in with him.

The old man went over to a magnificent old wardrobe and flung the doors open. "I have two suits ready for you. Also a dozen shirts, four waistcoats, and an overcoat which needs a final fitting. The overcoat I know you did not order, but I anticipated the need. The shoemaker delivered a pair of shoes and a pair of boots two months ago, and I have still a half-dozen pairs of gloves. Would you care for tea and biscuits?"

"Yes, thanks. What about undergarments and such? I'm a bit strapped at the moment."

"Of course." And damned if a woman I hadn't seen until she moved, about the same age as the tailor, didn't excuse herself to put the kettle on. There was something else. These people weren't acting afraid of him. They were acting as if he were a valued and respected customer.

And he was acting—sane. No death threats. No warning about not calling the police. He was even being _polite_ to them. Well, good tailors are hard to find.

I separated myself from him while he went behind a curtain to change. I could get across a room now; that was interesting. Another interesting fact was that while I was separate from him, I couldn't touch or taste or smell. I could only see and hear. Obviously I was using his nose and tongue and skin. But when I thought of myself, I thought of myself as having a body. Right now, I was sitting on the cutting table, atop a pile of old magazine.

The Joker had said he could see me, and when he did—I did. Could I see myself without him? I turned to face the full length mirror. Behind me, I heard the tailor and the Joker conversing quietly about things like the fit of a sleeve and the placement of certain inner pockets.

I was a bit shorter than he was. I had a lot of long dark hair hanging in my face. That was all right. I had a nice figure, or whatever he thought of as a nice figure. I was wearing a dress that sounded like I was getting ready to play the cello in a symphony orchestra, or something, but was that really _me_? Would I wear that if I had a choice?

I didn't _think_ so.

I tried to imagine myself. Maybe it was the atmosphere, but I thought of a fifties-style cocktail dress, something in a dark jungle green silk ikat, with touches of fuchsia and apple green florals bleeding into each other—and a fuchsia-magenta satin belt, slightly high, pleated. Sleeveless, scoop-necked. A balloon skirt, about knee length. Dark hose. I was beginning to see it. Somewhere between Audrey Hepburn and, um, _not_ Audrey Hepburn.

I was beginning to see me. This was _fun_. Shoes? Shoes…There was a Korean movie about shoes, Bunhongsin. A pair of very pink pumps which made the wearer feel confident and sexy and powerful, so beautiful they inspired homicidal longing and jealousy in everybody who saw them. Of course, they also occasionally ate the wearer's feet, but no pair of shoes is ever going to be _perfect_.

Was it possible that the Joker was going to be as bad an influence on me as I hoped to be a good influence on him?

That had better _not_ happen…

Obviously I knew a lot, not just about movies, but about Asian movies in particular. First there was the movie about the slit-mouthed woman and now Bunhongsin. Where had I seen them? On a large screen in a theater, or a small screen at home? Had I watched them with subtitles, were they dubbed in English, or had I understood every word?

I couldn't remember.

Was I Asian?

Did it matter?

I could see myself in the mirror, or I imagined I could see myself, in a chic dress that was more femme fatale than nice young thing, with killer shoes, a slim-curvy figure—and little mesh gloves? Why not? My arms were bare, my face still obscure. Maybe it was the light, but my skin tones looked more beige than pink.

Who was I? What was I? I tried to gather my hair away from my face. It didn't work.

I tried to imagine my hair away from my face. That didn't work either.

'You know, I don't know what it is you're trying to prove about humanity that hasn't been done over and over again.' I said, out of nowhere. 'and you're never going to prove that human being are fundamentally evil, because they aren't. Of course they aren't fundamentally good, either, so Batman will never win, wither.'

He didn't speak his response aloud. "_Is this, uh, really the time for a philosophical discussion? Sol here is sticking pins in places above certain vital points where I wouldn't want them to go any further."_

'I thought you _liked_ pain.'

"_Yeah, but Sol will be heartbroken if this suit is ruined before it leaves the shop_."

'So what's the deal with you and Sol and his wife or mother or sister or whoever she is? They aren't acting like they know who you are. Don't they own a TV or read the papers?'

"_She's his wife_. _As it happens, they don't, and they don't get out a lot. They have everything delivered._'

'So who do they think you are?'

"_They think I'm a professional entertainer_."

'A comedian-magician, right?'

"_Yes."_

'So all those special pockets you have him put in your suits, he thinks they're for your props, and not knives, grenades, and garrotes?'

"_Yes."_

'And you're the only income they have above social security, am I right? You're the only thing that stands between them and absolute poverty.'

"_Um, yeah."_

'And I bet you pay very well, too. Much more than the going rate.'

"_What does that matter?"_

'So why don't you kill them?'

"_What?" _Sol was talking about how Mister Jay should have his shirts laundered to preserve their crisp finish. There was a distinct hint of affection in his voice. His wife broke in to say that she remembered he liked two sugars and a squeeze of lemon, was she right? And she had those almond cookies he liked so much.

I didn't know if they were childless or what, but their Mister Jay was a surrogate grandson to them.

'If you have no rules, if you're dedicated to crushing all that is orderly and good, then you'd have no compunction about killing them. Right here. Right now.'

"_But—but I __**like**__ them. And he's the only tailor I know who can get my lapels just the way I want them."_

'If you have no rules,' I challenged him, 'that shouldn't make any difference.'

A/N: A cliffie! Yes, I know. I'm _evil_. And this is a really long chapter!


	14. Tea and Lon Chaney

I froze. "_I know what you're trying to do_," I told Grace carefully, containing my anger in front of Sol, "_You're trying to make me out to be better than I think I am, just as you made Bats out to be worse than he thinks he is. But the problem is, the problem is, that I really am nuts enough to cut off my nose to spite my face—."_

'Is that what happened to your face? You were going for your nose and the knife slipped?' she riposted.

"_Will you let me finish? If you call me on this one, if you push too hard, I will kill Sol and Bernice. Oh, I'll do it. I will. But the inconvenience of consequently having to find another tailor as good will put me in a truly foul mood. The only way of cheering myself up, I've found, is to go out and set fire to lots of stuff and blow some things up and kill a whole bunch of other people indiscriminately. While we're still just getting to know one another, I know you well enough all ready to know you would feel just horrible about that. You can read my mind. Read it now. Am I joking?"_

'No." she said after a careful moment.

"_So you can either retract your, uh, little challenge, and we never speak of this again, or you can press it, in which case there will be blood on the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. I'm going to leave this one for you to call. What'll it be_?"

'I retract the challenge." she said, hastily.

"_**Good** girl_."

"The tea is ready!" Bernice announced.

"And so is Mister Jay." Sol replied, opening the curtain with a flourish.

"Damn!" I said, because in the mirror in front of me, I could see Grace's reflection, and she looked…

She looked great, actually.

Grace had changed, literally and figuratively, never mind how. From being a fairly anonymous ghostly presence, back in Arkham, she had gone to being a person, and now to being a very attractive woman who you really couldn't tell was dead. This outfit put something out there for a man to look at—arms, legs, a hint of cleavage. What's more, she had good dress sense. Only women who don't know how to dress are afraid of color.

Speaking of color, there was her skin. She was milky pale, yes, but not peaches and cream. She was more like milky tea, not entirely Caucasian. Maybe not Caucasian at all. There were genes somewhere in her family tree that hailed from somewhere far more interesting than Gotham City. Her face, though, was still a mystery. I could see her chin, the curve of her cheek, and that was it. But it made her more enticing.

_It's a shame I can only look and not touch,_ I thought, but my carnal wanderings were interrupted by Sol, who asked anxiously, "Is something wrong? Did I leave a pin in?"

"Uh, no. I just remembered something I should have said to my assistant Grace. That's all."

"Your assistant? You have an assistant in your act now?" Bernice asked, bringing out the tea tray.

"No, she's my personal assistant. She makes appointments for me, keeps track of my schedule, generally nags and bosses me around."

'Like _hell_ I'm your personal assistant.' the girl in question said.

"Is she a young lady or a middle-aged one?" Bernice asked.

"Bernice, he's a kid yet!" Sol protested. "Don't go poking at him."

"It's all right. She's young, mid-twenties," I continued. "She did such a good job during the filming that I decided to keep her on after the shoot was over."

"Filming?" Sol asked. "You've been making a movie or something while you were away?"

"No, nothing like that. An hour-long comedy special for HBO," I adlibbed.

"HBO." Sol repeated, waving me to a seat. "That's one of those cable channels, isn't it? They show all the trashy things they can't put on regular television—and that's trashy enough, these days! I suppose you use bad language, I mean really foul words, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I do. That's what they seem to want."

"That's a shame." Sol shook his head. "Sure, people will laugh when you use the f-word and the c-words and the s-word, but that isn't real humor. It's just potty-mouthing."

"It's a start, though!" Bernice said, seeing the bright side of things. "Once you get your foot in the door, you'll start getting the offers."

"Hollywood isn't what it used to be. 1963, that was the year that ruined it. Sex and nudity, blood and guts and gore—it was better in the old days, when they couldn't show such things." Sol was off and running now. "They had to get creative. A murder would happen off screen, and all you would see was shadows on the wall. You had to use your imagination."

"But I am attracting some attention now out there. I'm up for a role in a horror movie about a girl who's murdered by a psychopath. She comes back to haunt him for what he's done, but the problem is, he's so crazy he hardly notices."

Grace made a scoffing sound.

"That sounds almost like a comedy." Sol said. "What part would you be playing?"

"The killer."

"Phh, no." Bernice sounded almost like Grace. "You?"

"So?" Sol leapt in. "Lots of great actors got their start playing heavies. Boris Karloff, he didn't have a career before Frankenstein. That role made him for life. The reason why that and The Bride of Frankenstein are classics is because you feel for the monster. You've got to have that sympathy, or it's just a freak show. And that takes real acting."

"Oh, now he's gone and gotten started." Bernice shook her head. "Have another couple of cookies. You've just got to let him wind down is all."

"Lon Chaney senior, rest his soul, one of the greatest actors who ever lived, he created his monsters from the skin outward. The Phantom of the Opera! The Hunchback of Notre Dame! London After Midnight! That guy, oh, the makeup he came up just chilled the blood. These days, he'd be just some schmoe behind the scenes who does the monster makeup, all that star quality wasted. That's what I see you doing."

It took a while before they let me leave, and when I did it was with three garment bags, a small suitcase, and an attaché case I'd left with them last time. The attaché case had fifty thousand in cash inside, completely untouched. I knew neither of them would dream of opening it. Suckers…

'I liked them.' Grace put in, quietly.

Glancing around, I saw no reflective surfaces. "Let's not go there again, shall we? I like your new outfit. Where'd you get the change of duds?"

'I thought them up.' she replied. 'So you could see them, too? What color were my shoes?' She sounded excited, just like a live girl who's been shopping.

"Pink like nothing I've ever seen in nature. No, wait, I take that back. I've seen bougainvillea that color. What about getting your hair out of your face, can you do that?"

'Nope. And I tried. Where are we going now?'

"To my secret hideout, where else?"

'How is it you can walk down the street without people screaming and running and calling the cops?' she asked.

"In this area of town, nobody sees anything. They mind their own business. Now, to get back to something you said earlier, if people aren't fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, what are they?"

'The best I can come up with is that they're fundamentally _people_. Look, we're born not knowing who we are, why we're here or what we're supposed to do, we spend most of our lives blundering around trying to find out the answers, ninety percent of the decisions we make can be chalked up to "It seemed like a good idea at the time", good sex never lasts long enough, and then we die. If we're really lucky, we have what Sol and Bernice back there have, but it's a gift we don't to keep forever. Just for a while. That's all I've got right now.'

"So you're saying all of human existence is a great big old chaotic mess. I can deal with that. It's what I've been saying all along."

She sighed. 'How I wish you'd listen to what I'm saying, and not just to what you want to hear.'


	15. Chemistry 101

They were beginning to blur together, which couldn't be good. "Which one is this, Alfred?" Bruce Wayne asked, wiping the sweat from his brow. His drenched forelock hung in his eyes.

"The eighth, sir." the butler offered. "We're underneath the former 15th District Fire station, which is now, ironically, a burnt-out shell. However, the underground infrastructure remains intact." He held the flashlight—no ordinary supermarket purchase, but an extremely powerful government-issue portable light source which weighed two and a quarter pounds and had 16 LEDs.

Wayne nodded. "Okay. It's good that you're keeping track." Hefting the sledgehammer, he stepped forward to take another blow.

"Wait!" Alfred forestalled him. "Listen!"

Bruce staggered, the momentum of the unspent blow pulling him off balance. "For what?"

"For that." Pipes and rebar still ran through the concrete of the underground fallout shelter, and from somewhere not too far away came a sound, a repetitive, human-made, familiar sound. Three fast taps, three drawn-out taps, three fast taps again. And then again, from the beginning. Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot. SOS, the one piece of Morse code everybody knew. SOS.

"You think it could be—?"

"It's the first sign of life we've heard, sir. If it isn't Miss Dawes, it's _someone_ in need of help."

Bruce nodded. "Stand back."

In the next chamber, they found bodies, four of them, in an advanced stage of decomposition. Gagging and choking, the two living men had to back away as the noxious odors rolled out of the confining space. The latex clown masks told them they were on the right track.

"The question is, how did they die?" Shielding his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, Bruce leaned over to give the closest body a cursory examination. "I don't see any signs of trauma, and the bodies seem more or less intact." Putrefaction had liquefied the softer tissues.

"Given the enclosed space, I'd venture to say gas or some other sort of poison, sir."

"You could be right, Alfred. We have to be very careful from here on out. Who knows what the Joker's built in to these walls?"

For whatever reason, Batman's foe had not put the same fiendish and obsessive attention to detail into Rachel's prison that, say, Indiana Jones tended to encounter in the death traps he faced. Perhaps it was because he meant to come back for the beautiful DA, and therefore didn't want to make it too difficult for himself. Perhaps it was because his attention span was lacking. Or perhaps he thought a two-ton deadfall would be sufficient.

It looked like an innocent stretch of hallway, just a long, grim box of concrete leading to a door at the far end.

"Wait." Bruce said before they entered. "Look up." The crack between wall and ceiling was stuffed with a yellowish, putty like material.

"Some form of plastique?" Alfred wondered. "Enough to bring the roof down on us. But what would set it off?"

"A motion detector? Pressure sensors in the floor? Maybe just opening the door down at the end of the hall." He could see the fallout shelter sign very clearly from where he stood.

"That's too complicated, sir. No—don't." The butler stopped his young employer with a arm. "The floor. It's a different color—and texture. Dark red. Why should it be dark red—Master Wayne, do you smell something?"

"Yeah." Wayne sniffed the air. "Cat pee."

"No. It isn't. It's ammonia. And the air coming out of there is damp. Cold and damp. Do you remember your freshman Chemistry lessons, sir? The explosive you could get out of common household chemicals? The one which could be set off by the touch of a feather?"

"Tri-iodine nitride. A precipitate of iodine and ammonia. Very unstable. Very dangerous. Highly explosive—but only when it's dry."

"And look at that vulgar message left scrawled on the wall." Alfred played the flashlight's beam over the words, 'A wise man would be pissing himself about now. Ha-ha!' The message was signed with a wide scarlet grin.

"So opening the door at this end of the hall starts warmer, dry air circulating in here, which dries out the compound on the floor. So by the time you get down to the other door and get it open—." Bruce began.

Alfred finished, "The floor is dried out to the point where just walking on it will set off the explosion. Worse than that, Master Wayne. Air currents will set it off. Simple. Brilliant. Twisted. They do say the hardest thing to learn is the least complicated."

"Just like the Joker. What do we do now? If we'd known about it, we could have brought gallons of ammonia down here to keep the floor wet. I don't know about you, but my bladder won't dampen even half of that. Why are you smirking?"

"I can't help it, sir. The Joker's sense of humor. It's sick, but it's perversely funny."

"What is?"

"That rescuing the lady should come down to a pissing contest."

"Alfred!"

"I'm sorry, sir. No, you're right. The hallway is too long, and by the time we were to go back to the surface and procure enough ammonia, the floor would be completely dry, and far too dangerous to get even as close as we are now. If I might make an observation, however?"

"Yes?"

"It's a distasteful one, I must warn you."

"Uh—go ahead."

"I believe that pipe over there, the slimy one, is a sewer line. And not a storm sewer. It's an old one, made of cast iron, which is relatively brittle. You have a sledgehammer. Go to it, sir. I shall remain here, where my shoes will not get dirty."

"You mean—?"

"You're going to have to wade in it, sir."

A/N: Some people liked Alfred's accent written as 'Oi' for 'I' and 'suh' for 'sir', while others hated it. Since there were more haters, you'll have to imagine it without written help from me. And thanks to all my reviewers!


	16. Almost Like Friends

Grace: The Joker's secret hideout turned out to be the old Chatterton's Department Store warehouse on the bank of the Sprang River. Chatterton's was bought out by one of the big chains over twenty-five years ago, so the warehouse was a decrepit building in a rundown area which cried out for urban revitalization, or else a lighted match, take your pick. Well, my pick would have been for revitalizing, but the Joker liked it as it was. And it did mean he had an awesome river view which cost him absolutely nothing. The downside were the river rats, which swam like otters (and were almost as big).

First he had to unlock, defuse, and haul up the dockside door. 'I'm surprised, I admit it.' I said, once we were actually inside. 'I was expecting squalor and filth. You really keep this place clean and well organized.' The area we stood in looked like a big test kitchen or a science classroom, with sinks, ranges, ventilation hoods, and cabinets. Locked cabinets.

"This is my laboratory," he explained. "When you use the sort of chemicals I do to make what I, uh, make, you can either be sloppy or you can be alive. Personally, I prefer alive. See the sign there?" he gestured to the wall. "My contribution to the anti-tobacco industry. 'Thank you for not smoking' just doesn't cut it around high explosives."

Written on the wall was the warning: "Light up in here and you will die. One way or another." It was signed with a wide red grin.

'Hold that thought. It's a good one' I advised him. Cinderblock walls, thick ones, divided the warehouse into rooms, and now he turned the corner into what was obviously private space. 'But the living area's decent too.' It was furnished in Early Thrift Store. Although lacking in any style, it wasn't messy.

"I don't like rats and cockroaches, so I don't leave stuff around to attract them. Anyhow, I don't live here most of the time. I just crash here now and then."

'Where _is_ your home, then?' I asked, curious.

"I don't have one," he replied. "No place means any more than any other place. Wherever I am, it's just another place to crash. It's never been any different, as far back as I can remember." He said it so off-handedly that it had the ring of truth.

'Yeah, but given that you can't remember coherently--and I use the word coherent to be kind--back beyond three years ago, that doesn't mean a whole lot, does it? And excuse me if I'm not overwhelmed with sympathy for the poor lonely homeless homicidal maniac.'

He laughed. "Now that's more like it. Anyhow, this is it." He turned a corner, and entered his bedroom, which was as spare as the rest of the place.

"Make yourself at home. I've got some things to do." He hung the garment bags up on a rolling clothes rack and tossed the cases on the bed before he unlocked a set of drawers and pulled out an assortment of cell phones, some still in plastic.

"Prepaid, disposable, untraceable." Plugging one in, he started making calls, most of which were along the lines of "Hey, it's me. Six o'clock tonight. The Boom Factory." So I looked around.

There was one piece of art in the place: a painting of a clown, mainly red and white against a rich green background. Meticulously executed yet uninspired, I had to wonder why the Joker bothered with it, until I looked closer, and saw the signature.

John Wayne Gacy. If I had blood and bones with which to shiver, I would have. Gacy had raped and killed thirty-three young men and boys back in the seventies, burying twenty-seven of them under his house and disposing of others in various rivers. A contractor by profession, he had a sideline as a children's entertainer and magician— using the persona of Pogo the Clown. During the fourteen years he spent in prison before his execution, he painted and sold hundreds of pictures. The most popular were of clowns.

"I see you're admiring my décor." the Joker drawled.

I focused my attention on him again—and saw he was looking, not at me, but away—at a full length mirror. Yes, there I was. "Guess how much I paid for it." he commanded.

I could already see the answer in his head. 'Nothing. You stole it—after you killed the man who owned it.'

"Aww, you were peeking. I'm going to have to get some more mirrors to put around this place, so's I can keep an eye on you. Say, uh, what are you wearing under that dress?" He leered at me by way of my reflection.

I wasn't going to tell him I hadn't imagined that far. 'White cotton granny panties and a full-coverage bra.'

"Ooooh. White cotton. All innocent and sweet and pure…I can just _imagine_."

I snapped back inside his head. 'You keep your imagination to yourself, or the next time you're unconscious and I have control, I will dress you up in a Dr. Frankenfurter outfit, bustier, garter belt and all, before I walk you into the nearest police station…No, you'd probably enjoy that.'

He laughed. "No, no, keep going! I want to hear how this ends. Can you throw in a policewoman who looks like Benson off of SVU and a truncheon? Oh, and handcuffs? Definitely handcuffs. Then Bats should come in and…" He continued in detail I really didn't need to hear.

'Shut up!' I sputtered at him. 'You—you hentai!'

"Hentai?"

'Pervert. In Japanese.'

"You were the one who started it. Enough fun. For now. I've got some people coming over later, and there's no point in having errand boys if they never run any errands, so you should make out a list of whatever groceries—."

'Make out a list? And how do I do that?'

"Uh—damn."

'Got a pencil and a piece of paper?'

"Wait a sec." He went back to the living room area, found the necessary items, and sat down on the couch. Jumping back up immediately, he pulled the cushions aside to disclose an open switchblade. "So that's where this went. I was looking for it."

'Is that dark stain on it—Never mind. Okay. Orange juice, bananas, milk.' As I couldn't hold a pencil, he wrote down what I told him to. Around the point where I was saying, 'Broccoli, chicken breasts—,' he stopped and said:

"Look—can't I just get a case or two of that intelligent water stuff and drink that instead?"

'No.'

"Why not? It would be less trouble, and it wouldn't go bad."

'Because it's glorified sugar water with a multivitamin dissolved in it, that's why. Those are dietary _supplements_, not substitutes. You get more out of real food."

"Preachy, nagging little know-it-all." he grumbled, and for a moment, just for a moment, it was like we were friends.


	17. The Drunkard's Walk

Mucky to the knees, thanks to the initial gush of effluvia from the broken pipe, Bruce surveyed the now-very-wet floor and nodded. If it wasn't safe now, it never would be. As he trudged back toward Alfred, he reflected that in his seven years of wandering, he had been in more disgusting situations, but not much more disgusting and not often.

"Crowbar." he requested, and his ever-helpful butler extended it from a safe distance, his handkerchief pressed to his nose and mouth.

Walking back again, half-dead from his exertions, Bruce Wayne wedged the bar into the crack of the door and put his back into it. The door groaned, but refused to give. He did it again, and again.

On the fifth pry, the lock gave with an octave-spanning screech, and Rachel practically fell into his arms, her hair and eyes wild and streaming. "What took you so long?" she half-screamed, half-sobbed, and then, "What is that smell?"

"I can explain everything," he promised. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her across the filth, as chivalrously as any hero could.

* * *

I finished the list by adding, 'Lady Phaidon, Morning Frost, Shade #103.' Little old ladies dye their hair blue because their aging corneas are turning yellow, making their silver hair look dingy to their eyes. I use the same stuff because adding a hint of blue to my sandy hair turns it green, and Lady Phaidon is the only kind that doesn't destroy the texture. That was it. I'd pick one of my goons and send him out with a few hundred, and then I'd be set.

Grace was, I decided, fun. Not as much fun as Bats, of course, because in every possible way she lacked the capacity for intense and extended violence. However, she was just as appalled and even more horrified at my antics and attitude toward life than he was, and she had a way with repartee. She loathed me, but she did it with wit. That counts for a lot.

Plus, she was on hand all the time. I could already tell that Bats would need a cooling-off period between rounds, or he would burst a blood vessel. For that matter, I could use that time to plot out what to do next, like right now. I unlocked my electronics storeroom and brought out my laptop. Time to create a new me—at least as far as the Gotham City Police, Arkham Asylum, and NICAP databases were concerned.

'What are you doing?' Grace asked as I booted up.

"You don't suppose my prints and DNA didn't match up with any of the records by accident, did you? That I somehow got to be—um, 27? 28?" Damn, I wish I knew. "that I got to this age without _ever_ having come to the attention of the authorities?"

'I don't believe I gave it any thought until this moment, but now that you mention it, it seems highly unlikely that you could have gone under the radar. You must have mad skills.'

"Yes, I do. To them, I'm more of a ghost than you are, and I want to keep it that way. So I worked up this nifty little program to randomly generate new prints and new DNA patterns. Whenever they think they've got me pegged, I ooze away. They can't catch what they can't see."

'But that was before you became the Joker, wasn't it? I mean, before you stepped up to the plate as Batman's biggest foe, etc?'

"Ye-es. Your point being?"

'Don't you want to take credit?'

"Hmmm. That's uh, such a good and ego-pleasing suggestion that I have to say I'm suspicious. Where's the catch? Y'see, I know you want me to get caught and sent back to Arkham as soon as soon can be, so I ask again, where's the catch? How will leaving my prints and DNA where they are now get me back in the poky sooner?"

'No catch that I'm aware of.' she almost certainly lied. 'Ghosts don't leave a mark on the world, that's all.'

"I'm gonna think this one over while I get something to eat." I pushed the laptop aside and got up. In the kitchen area, I rifled through the freezer, settling on mac and cheese.

'So what's the plan now?' she asked while the microwave did its work.

"There's only ever going to be one plan." I explained. "'Make trouble for Batman.' The rest is just, uh, variations on that theme. Now of course I'm very good at variations. I can play them in any key from 'Whoopie Cushion' to 'Gelignite', fast or slow, loud or soft. At the moment, though, it's going to be 'Find Harvey Dent.'—or, actually, Two-Face. Harvey." I repeated. "Harveyharveyharvey. Harvey Dent. I did Rachel a favor there, when you think about it—because he would have made a lousy husband."

'And on what do you base that conclusion?'

"What was Harvey? A district attorney. What is a district attorney? A politician. All politicians are two-faced; it's just the nature of the breed. They have these lofty goals, but to achieve them—which they never do, by the way—they have to lie, slander, pander, and defame. You know who Rachel Dawes Dent would have become? Hillary Rodham Clinton to his Bill." The microwave dinged, and I took out the entree.

'Oh, come on!'

"No, listen. Politicians, when they go to get married, they don't do it so much for love as because their chosen wife will help their careers—and she would have done that. Perfect hostess, earner of a second income, photogenic—you know how the media loves to catch the candidate's wife gazing at him and hanging on his every word. They would have had a kid or two, most likely, always good for a politician's image to be seen as a good family man.

"But when it comes to fun, when it comes to the down and dirty and getting his rocks off, these wives don't cut it. Too familiar, maybe. Too strong, too tough. When it comes to fun, the politician goes for a little tootie with big eyes and bigger tits. Of course it's even better when it's a boy, not a girl. It happens over—and over—and over. Even when these men know they're under a microscope, they just _have_ to be dawgs out chasing the kitties."

'You're probably right.'

"Now of course you're going to get all 'Oh, but if he luvved her he wouldn't cheat,'—what?" I ate the first forkful of macaroni, and kept on shoveling in bites between lines.

'I said you were probably right. Not used to people agreeing with you? Maybe there's a link between sex drive and the kind of aggressiveness a successful politician needs to make it. There are too many examples out there for me to go denying the probability. JFK. RFK. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gary Hart, John Edwards, Clinton—Rachel Dawes would have to be stupid not to realize it was possible, even likely he would be unfaithful. I'd say she'd have to make up her mind about what was really important.'

"You surprise me. I thought women were all about the, uh, ro—mance."

'Men are actually more romantic than women in some ways. What about you in the romance department?'

"Me?" I couldn't remember faces or names. All I had were impressions of skin scented with honey, or roses, or musk, slender softness. No doubt she knew that, too. I put on a fake country accent "Ah, shucks, Ma'am. I've never known just what to say to women, or when to say it, or how to get them to stop screaming—."

'That last part I believe. But Dent fell apart when he lost her. Doesn't that say something about his love for her?'

"Dent fell apart because I swung the hammer and shattered him. Okay, so he was already fragile. His dear old daddy was institutionalized. He died _insane_."

'Which is exactly what you're going to do.'

"I'm _not_ insane. Really. _I'm not_. They just don't know what else to label me. To be insane, you have to be unable to understand the difference between right and wrong. I know the difference. I just _prefer_ to do wrong. _Lots_—and—_lots_ of it."

'It could be argued that is a symptom of insanity in itself. Again, though, that's an argument against your being an agent of chaos. Chaos doesn't care whether it does right or wrong. It's as likely to do one as the other.'

"Bringing us back again to our friend Harvey, who is now deciding his every move by flipping a coin. Chaos in action."

'But that's stupid too. What about all those situations where there are more than two possible courses of action?'

"At this point, I imagine that problem has him in a state where he can't even leave his room for ambiguity. That's why I want to find him. He needs help. He needs a friendly push in the right direction."

'Which is in the direction of crime and mayhem, of course.' she said sarcastically. 'But if he's doing the right thing _half_ the time, won't he even out over the long run?'

"No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Au contraire. Because the _evil_ counts for so much more than the good. If you'd ever studied probability theory, you'd know about the Drunkard's Walk."

'Then I guess I haven't studied probability , because I don't know about it. When and where did you study it?'

"Oh, I pick things up here and there, just by reading. There's this imaginary alcoholic, see? He's just left the bar and he's on his way home on a snowy evening. His home is at the end of the street. Because he's too drunk to walk straight, every step he takes is either to the right or the left, a fifty-fifty chance every time. But if it's a fifty-fifty chance every time, than he can take seventeen or seventy steps to the left without one step to the right. All it takes is one step more in one direction than the other, and he's off course. It's amazing how fast it happens. The moral of the story is: If the street is long enough, sooner or later you wind up dead in the ditch."

'You and your unoriginality. For at least six thousand years, philosophers and theologians all over the world have been trying to tell people how difficult it is to stick to the straight and narrow. Although I admit people never do seem to get the point.'


	18. Seven Graces

Billionaires rarely have to worry about running out of hot water, which was good, as it took Bruce Wayne three showers before he felt as well as smelled clean. Throwing on an old pair of khakis and a polo shirt, he emerged from his room, still toweling his hair dry.

He found Alfred at work on his laptop, looking like an approaching thunderstorm. "How's Rachel?" he asked his butler.

"Her spirits are much improved, I think, Master Wayne. I took her a tray with hot tea and a small repast to tide her over until dinner. I also took the liberty of loaning her a few items from your wardrobe, sir, namely a robe and a set of your pajamas. Might I offer a suggestion, sir?"

"When have I ever stopped you?"

"Thank you, sir. Miss Rachel is emotionally vulnerable at the moment, as you know. I would not want her to have any regrets with which to reproach herself. If you take my meaning, sir."

Meaning only a cad would take advantage of her at a time like this. "Ah." Bruce flushed slightly. To cover himself, he asked, a little too loudly, "What are you working on there?"

"I'm merely indulging a fancy of mine, sir, by looking up all the women named Grace who have died or disappeared in the last year, and then identifying those who were in some way concerned with education, children's services, or charitable causes. As I said, it's merely a fancy of mine. I do not believe in ghosts." The two men had discussed 'Grace's' nature.

"Then why are you doing it?" Wayne asked.

"There are some things in this world one must believe in, Master Wayne, in order for them to exist. 'Freedom', 'mercy' and 'justice', for example. Then there are the things one need not believe in, precisely because they do exist, like this table or the floor or the towel around your neck. It remains to be seen which category ghosts fall into."

"All right. So did you come up with any results?"

"Yes, sir. I found seven women with 'Grace' somewhere in their names who fit the criteria."

"Can you run them down for me?"

"Certainly, sir. Starting with the eldest and working backward: Sister Margaret Grace of Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy. She taught elementary school for sixty-three years before her health failed her."

Bruce whistled. "Sixty-three years. How old was she when she passed away?"

"Ninety-five, sir. Died peacefully in her sleep. She was a teacher of the 'old school', if I may be permitted a small play on words. A 'ruler on the knuckles' disciplinarian."

"I could be wrong, but I don't see the Joker's Grace as a ninety-five year old nun. She seemed much younger."

"Who is to say how old we are after we pass away, sir? Haven't you encountered people who seem to have been born middle-aged, as well as those whose youthful spirit endures their entire lives, though they live into their eighties?"

"I see what you're saying—and after all, this is just conjecture. Who's next?"

"Singer-songwriter Grace June Lavoy. She was often referred to as 'the Joan Baez of Gotham.' Between 1965 and 1985, she recorded twelve albums, three of which were children's songs. The proceeds of those albums went to children's charities across the globe. You might perhaps remember her, Master Wayne. Your parents asked her to your fourth birthday party."

"Yes! Yes, you're right. I remember. She played a guitar, and she had waist-length hair, black, with grey streaks in it. She would have been what, sixty? Sixty-three?"

"Sixty-two, sir. She died of metastasized breast cancer."

"That's a shame."

"Indeed, sir. But she led a long and fulfilling life, unlike others on this list. Next is Elizabeth Louise Grace. She was a case worker for Children's Services. Last seen jogging in Old Gotham Park, she was reported missing by her husband almost eleven months ago. She was fifty-seven at the time of her disappearance."

"No leads?"

"None, sir. After her comes forty-nine year old Grace Alma Kelling. She ran the Safe Haven Family Shelter. She was killed by the estranged lover of one of the women who came to her for help. He went on to stab his girlfriend and their child before cutting his own throat."

"All dead?"

"Yes, sir. I did warn you. Next on the list is Sylvia Grace Park, thirty-five. She was a nurse in Gotham General's pediatric ward, and especially good with the chronically ill and the terminal cases. A person who was well-loved and much missed. She was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle. The driver has never been identified."

"Alfred, this list is—disturbing."

"Yes, sir. It is." He paused. "Shall I go on?"

"Yes."

"Very well, sir. There are two others. Padparadscha Grace Lindenwold, twenty-four—."

" 'Padparadscha'?"

"Yes, sir. I believe it is a very rare and valuable variety of sapphire characterized by its color, an unusual shade of pink. She went by her middle name, for understandable reasons. She was an art teacher at Thurgood Marshall Middle School for two years before losing her position due to budget cuts.

"As one of the most recent hires, she was one of the first fired—although her outspoken criticism of the 'No Child Left Behind' Act as well as the deficiencies of the Gotham school system could not have helped. Afterward, she managed an art supplies store before suffering massive head injuries in a car accident which left her in a vegetative state. Her parents made the decision to take her off life support while her organs were still healthy enough to be transplanted.

"The last on this list is the most tragic of them all, sir. It does not make for easy reading. You will forgive me if I have difficulty.

"Grace-of-God Precious Makutsi, an honor student and the spelling bee champion of her school died, along with her younger brother, the only casualties in a playground shooting, a conflict between rival teenage gangs. She was very beautiful, gentle, and thoroughly good, by all accounts—and only twelve years old."

Bruce Wayne was silent for a long moment, standing at his penthouse window wall, looking out over the city. _His_ city. "Gotham," he said, when he could trust himself to speak, "is like some ancient and terrible god who eats its children, spitting out alive only the ones it can't stomach. It must change. It _will_ change."

"How?" The two men had not noticed Rachel's entrance, but now they turned to see her, standing like a child in Bruce's night clothes, the cuffs turned up to fit her shorter frame.

She continued. "You can't punch out ignorance. No spinning back-kick is going to knock out poverty for you. They're the _real_ enemies, Bruce."

"You're right." he admitted. "I can't hit illiteracy with my fists, but I can endow a charitable foundation that will."

"That's the first sensible idea I've heard from you in years," she observed, tartly. Her eyes dropped. "So Harvey's missing."

"Yes. He was…burned very badly, and acted somewhat irrationally." Which was a very weak way of saying Harvey Dent had shot one detective and killed both Maroni and his driver before threatening Commissioner Gordon's family.

"And I'm presumed dead. How are we going to explain my resurrection? It's not like we can say to the authorities that you're Batman and you broke the Joker out of Arkham only to lose him in order to find out where I was." Rachel twiddled a lock of her hair in her fingers.

"I've been giving this some thought," Alfred put in. "We shall tell them Batman rescued you, which is true. Once free, you came straight to Master Wayne, he being your oldest friend. After which, he and I went to look at the place where you were imprisoned, which is why our prints are all over it."

* * *

"There's a little problem with your story." Commissioner Gordon was clearly a man on the edge, but with the Joker on the loose, that was only natural.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked him. She and Bruce had gone straight to City Hall to see Gordon once Alfred had procured some proper clothing for her.

"This hasn't been released to the media yet, but it will be within the hour." Gordon picked up a remote and pointed it at the television. "This morning, a taxi driver pulled up to Good Samaritan's emergency room entrance with his severed ear in his lap. It seems the Joker snuck up on him while he was catching a few winks in his cab, and demanded, at knifepoint, to be driven into Old Gotham. The driver let him off at Hildarose and Vine. As payment for the ride, the Joker let him live and gave him his own ear for a tip.

"We immediately pulled the footage from all the traffic cameras in the area in a one mile radius. This is the Joker getting out of the cab." The screen showed the criminal leaving the vehicle, full makeup on, and wearing Arkham scrubs.

"Where ever he went from there, he was off the main traffic arteries for almost two hours. When he reappears—." A different intersection. "—he has on one of his suits and he's loaded down with garment bags. And as you can see,"

"He has a woman with him." Rachel marveled.

The Joker's companion, whoever she was, didn't seem to be under any duress. There was no knife at her throat or gun in her side, and her body language did not speak of fear. Wearing a predominantly green print dress with a hot pink belt and matching shoes, her figure and ease of movement revealed that she was young. That was the only indication of her age, as her face could not be seen behind her long dark hair.

"You can't be implying that Rachel is the woman on that tape," Wayne objected.

"I'm not implying anything." Gordon defended himself. "The Joker is on the loose. I have a mystery woman who not only can't be identified, but who witnesses say wasn't even there—."

"What do you mean?" the billionaire playboy asked.

"We combed the neighborhood and found three eyewitnesses who saw the Joker. All three of them swear he was alone. Miss Dawes, you disappeared the night the Joker was taken into custody, and now, hours after his escape, you reappear. You're about the right height and build, and you have the right hair. Do you appreciate how suspicious that looks?"

"What about his clothes?" Wayne countered.

"What?" Badly stressed as he was, the question temporarily stymied the commissioner.

"Do you know where he picked up his clothes?" the other man explained.

"We're working on it. I have officers asking questions at every dry cleaner, every costume shop, every storage facility, every men's store or tailor in the area, but so far, they've found nothing."

"What about her clothes?" Rachel asked. "You're not going to find an outfit like that in an average department store. That's either vintage or couture."

"We're working on it! Keep in mind we're searching for the Joker even harder than we're looking for his haberdasher. It's only a matter of time before the city's on fire again and people are dying left and right." He recovered himself. "Look. I will gladly identify you as Rachel Dawes, Assistant District Attorney of Gotham City and issue you a temporary ID. Now go home. Leave an address and phone number where you can be reached. Call your friends and your family to let them know you're alive. Call your lawyer and start proceedings to have yourself legally declared among the living.

"Damn! Now we've also got to find out who the body was at 250 52nd St, since it obviously wasn't you. Mr. Wayne—." Gordon turned to her companion. "Thank you for coming down. We'll be in touch with you. Have a good day. I know I won't."

* * *

A/N: Long week. Not happy. Mood down somewhere around my socks. Please review, it will cheer me up a lot. Thank you in advance.


	19. By Process of Elimination

A/N: Oh. My. God. Thank you all so much. You _did_ cheer me up! Lots of you had great theories about who Grace is/was. This chapter may (or may not) help narrow it down. And again,_ thanks_. (I'd bruised a rib while bicycling and then had trouble with somebody at work.)

* * *

Imagine a big plate of scrambled eggs, flavored here and there with brown Worcestershire sauce and red Tabasco sauce. Then plaster it all over half of a man's face and stretch a piece of plastic wrap over it to hold it on. That's what a healed burn victim's skin looks like, blotchy, strangely colored, lumpy, shiny-taut in places, wrinkly in others. I encircled that part of Harvey's face, pressed Enter, and watched Photoshop's magic at work.

The eye…what would have happened to an eye whose eyelids were entirely burned away? Eyes were delicate things, and they popped so... satisfyingly between thumb and forefinger, like a nice fat grape. Without lids, the natural lubrication of tears, or enough eye drops, the orb would dry out and quite possibly lose its vision. I turned the eye a cloudy, rheumy white.

There were plenty of photos of Harvey Dent on line, but none of him _after _his Extreme Makeover, Joker Edition, and I needed one for my lads to take around Gotham. I had my laptop in my lap as I sat cross-legged on the bed, because that was the only room, other than the bathroom, with a mirror. Having somebody in the room I couldn't see bugged me.

'Do you normally refer to them as your "lads"? Why not "henchmen" or "minions"?'

Three guesses who that was. "I normally refer to them as 'expendable.'" I told Grace, glancing across the room at the mirror. She was stretched out across the bed next to me, lying on her stomach. "Did you change your clothes?"

'Uh-huh! Pretty nifty, huh?' She was now wearing a—well, I guess it was a mini-dress in green and pink paisley, although it barely covered her shapely bottom. The sleeves were long and the collar was high, although it had a big circular cut out right in the place calculated to get my attention, front and center. And she _did_ have my attention. Her shoes were now knee-high platform go-go boots. In pink.

"Yeah, but _why_ are you doing it?"

'Hang on a sec. Watch.' The outfit changed, flowing like water and changing color as it did so. Now it was a peacock green satin gown, sleeveless, high necked in front but backless to the waist. The skirts were full length; she kicked them up to reveal stiletto heeled sandals in her signature pink.

'I just have to imagine it. Well, other than sniping at you, there isn't much else I can do. It isn't as if I can go make myself a cup of tea or find a book to read.'

"Why don't you try doing something about your hair? I still can't see your face. Can it be that hard to imagine a barrette or something?"

'Apparently it is that hard. I can't do it. _Maybe_ my face is better left unseen. Maybe I'm like The Night Of The Living Dead under all this hair.' She didn't sound particularly upset about it.

"You think a little thing like that would bother me? Anyhow, what's up with the pink shoes?"

'I _like_ pink. Does it have to be any more complicated than that? While we're on the subject, why do you wear purple and green suits all the time?'

"Hey, I designed this outfit with a very specific goal in mind. It's an anti-Batman statement. He wears a black bat-suit, stark, rigid, radiating morality and order. I, therefore, am the color, complication and chaos he denies and tries to eradicate. Plus,_ I_ have a sense of humor."

'Why didn't you go for a rainbow outfit, if you're all about the color?'

"Two reasons. One, I'm not crazy about yellow and orange. Two, I didn't want to be mistaken for a Gay Pride activist gone berserk."

'That's very considerate of you. The gay and lesbian communities are having enough trouble achieving social equality without _you_ blackening their causes and making them look bad.'

I ignored that. When I looked in the mirror, I could see her, but when I glanced at the bed beside me, I saw nothing. I reached over, using the mirror to guide me, to run my hand over that pert rump. All I touched was air and slightly crusty bedspread.

'Hey! Keep your hands and your thoughts to yourself, buddy!'

"Well, if you don't want me thinking, what was it?, _hentai_ thoughts about you, you should imagine yourself in something less revealing. Of course if you _want_ to turn me on—."

'Oh, hell!' The slinky gown changed into a pink sweater and loose-fitting silver-green pants. With, of course, pink sneakers.

I laughed. This was…nice. Stranger still, it was the closest I had come in years—to_ normal_.

Allowing for the fact that I was hanging out with a dead girl who wouldn't even be there if she had a choice. Suddenly I wanted to hurt her, and since I couldn't do it physically, I opened my mouth and said. "Uh, did you happen to notice that _you're not white_?"

'Yeah.' She extended an arm to look at her hand. 'I'm kind of an iced chai-latte color, with maybe a hint of green tea in there somewhere. I doubt I'm African-American, my hair's all wrong for that. I think American Indian is out, too, and Latina as well. I could be Greek—but again, my hair's wrong. My money, if I had any, which I don't, is on Asian-American of some kind. Thai, maybe. Somewhere between India and Japan, anyhow.' She sounded relaxed about it, interested but not deeply concerned.

"Maybe you're one of those Chinese or Korean import models."

'What do you mean?'

"I mean that when white couples can't have or adopt healthy white babies and don't want to adopt healthy black babies, they go over to China and Korea to buy themselves healthy yellow babies. Yellow's not as good as white, but it's better than black—and everybody knows Asians work hard and excel in school. It would explain why you're so well…assimilated."

'Oh, come off it. We both know better than that. You don't care what anybody's race is any more than a cat cares what color mouse it's about to eat.'

"Well, I guess I can't fool you."

'Don't let that stop you from trying.' she advised me. 'I like a challenge.' She rolled over. Her hair _still_ covered her face.

What was up with that?

* * *

"Alfred" Bruce tossed his jacket carelessly to one side as he entered the media room with the entertainment system that took up an entire wall. "Can you call up that list of 'Graces' again?"

"Certainly, sir. Is there something in particular you're looking for?" Alfred put down the feather duster and took off his apron before going into the next room for the laptop.

"Yes. Photographs."

From the file photo of the nun with a classroom full of second grade students to put her into perspective, Sister Margaret Grace had been more than six feet tall and large with it. Not fat; just large, as if she had been constructed to one-and-one-third scale. "No."

In old photographs Grace June Lavoy was just as Bruce remembered: a willowy, fairy-like beauty with long hair, but she had been much shorter than Rachel—and besides, in more recent photographs she had been ravaged by her disease, her slenderness turned to bony gauntness, the flowing hair destroyed by chemo and radiation treatments. "Not her."

Elizabeth Louise Grace had short, silver hair. While athletically firm, she was still middle aged in her photograph, her waist and hips widened and thickened by time and childbearing. "Doubt it."

Grace Alma Kelling had aggressively red hair and had weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds at the time of her death. "Impossible."

Sylvia Grace Park turned out to be Korean. In the obituary photograph, she wore her nursing uniform, a starched cap on her head and a cross visible in the hollow of her throat. Her hair was pulled back in a braid or a ponytail, and she seemed to be the right height and build. "Maybe."

Padparadscha Grace Lindenholm was a surprise. The child of an Indonesian mother and a Minnesota Swede father, she was decidedly exotic, but striking rather than beautiful. The paper had run her college graduation photograph, showing her in her cap and gown. Unfortunately the gown concealed her build, and her hair was chin length, much too short—but the photograph was several years old. "Maybe."

Grace-of-God Precious Makutsi was African American, and aside from being too small and young, she was much darker than the woman on the traffic cam footage, and her hair was in corn-rows. Her intelligence shone in her eyes, and her goodness in her shy, sweet smile. Yes, she had been a beautiful child who would have grown into a woman of great strength and character, but…"No." The ravening appetite of the monster-city had a lot to answer for.

"Might I ask what this is about, sir?"

"It should be up by now. You said you don't believe in ghosts, Alfred. Let me show you this…"


	20. Dented

Grace:

'This is going to be nothing but bad. I can tell already.'

"That's what I'm hoping." the Joker replied affably, and rapped on the motel door. "Hey, Harv! How're they hanging, pal?"

It was shortly after midnight, and my host's 'expendables' had tracked Harvey Dent to this sleazy hot-sheet motel near Gotham International Airport. From the looks of it, it catered not just to the rent-by-the-hour crowd, but to those unfortunates who couldn't scrape together both a security deposit and first-and-last month rent on an apartment anywhere. The irony was, staying in a motel cost them more in the long run. Graffiti on the hallway walls bled through the covering coat of paint, revealing that even four letter words are not so easy that they can't be spelled wrong.

There was no sound from inside. "Harv? I brought beer—and pizza." the Joker tried.

'Liar. You didn't bring any pizza.'

"Yeah, but to make up for it, I brought extra beer, and they have lots of the same stuff in them. You know, uh, like water. And yeast. And grain. Beer has grain in it, right? Hey, be a good ghost and pop in there to have a look around, okay? I mean, uh, he could have done something to himself and be in need of medical attention."

'You're still not fooling me, Joe.'

"Joe?" he repeated, as if I had asked him to pass the parsnip sauce.

"Yeah, Joe, as in Joe Kerr. For his sake, I will."

I stepped through the door as though it were mist, noticing it was chained and bolted from the inside. That meant Harvey Dent was in there. The lights were out, but the curtains were open, and the lights from the airport cast tactlessly over-dramatic shadows across the room. Not that it would have made any difference to me if the room had been pitch black. I could see regardless.

Not that I particularly wanted to see what was in there: Harvey Dent was picking maggots off the ruined left half of his face and crushing them between his fingers before wiping the goo on the bedspread. (Which looked as though it already had enough DNA and mysterious substances on it to spawn an entirely new form of life.)

The rest of the room was in exactly the same state of contamination that one would expect after seeing Mr. Dent. 'Urghhh.' I said.

He heard me! "Who's that?" Dent turned to stare directly at me. "Who are you and what do you want?"

'You can see and hear me?'

"Not with this eye. Or this ear." He pointed first to his remaining good eye and good ear. "But I can with _these_." His left eye was a dead, fish-belly white and the hole where his ear had been oozed pus. "Here I thought they were useless now. Like me. So who are you—and how did you get through a locked door without even rattling it?"

'My name is Grace, and—Just think of me as the Joker's guardian angel, it'll save a lot of explaining. He's right outside the door, and he wants to talk to you. If I were you, I'd send him away. No good will come to you, or anyone else, from letting him in.'

Dent laughed, a sound like a boot coming free from the mud. "You're his guardian angel and you talk like that about him?"

'I didn't say I _was_ his guardian angel, I just said to _think_ of me as his—never mind. Have you been following the news?'

"What would be the point?" he asked.

'If you had, you'd have learned that Rachel Dawes is alive.'

He reacted exactly the opposite way from what I had expected, launching himself off the bed and bolting for the door. He unlocked it and threw it open with such force and fury that it rebounded off the wall and knocked him into the Joker's arms.

"Way to go, Gracie!" the Joker rejoiced. "Aww, Harvey, it's okay. Look, I didn't drop the beer."

"It's Two-face!" The former DA grabbed the Joker by the throat and began throttling him while snarling horrible things into his nose.

Fortunately the Joker knew some moves to break the other man's hold. Dropping the beer, he spun the other man around, bringing Dent's arm up behind his back and smashing his face into the doorframe. "Now you're not being friendly at all, Dent, when I came here to help you. Calm down, pal. Calm down, and let's take this in out of the hall, okay?"

He frog-marched Harvey back into the room, propelling him onto the bed before going back for the dropped beer. "Better not try opening this for a while, or more of it'll be on the ceiling than down our gullets. I'd introduce you to Grace, but from what I heard with my ear pressed against the door, she's already introduced herself. She's just chockfull of surprises, isn't she?"

Recovering fast, Dent launched himself off the bed at the Joker again. "Rachel's alive. She was alive all along, you liar! You—."

"Yeah, and you know who's got her? You know who she went straight to? Bruce Wayne."

'Only because she didn't know where you were,' I interrupted, 'and she needed help.'

"Oh, put a sock in it, will you, Pollyanna?" the Joker snarled at me. "You're cramping my style here!"

I was the sanest person in the room, and I was only real for a given value of real. That did not help my credibility. 'I'm trying to help you, Mr. Dent. All he wants to do is wind you up and turn you loose on Gotham City. You need medical attention and—.'

"I don't want your help!" Dent barked at me. Honestly, he was as bad as Batman. "You." He turned to the Joker. "You ruined my life. You stole everything from me. You lied to me. You turned me into a murderer."

"Uh-uh-uh!" The Joker waggled a naughty finger at him. "I only let out what was there all along, under the surface. I took your illusions from you, Harv. Nothing more. _You_ did the rest."

"What illusions? I was Gotham City's DA, in the middle of the biggest case of my career. I was about to be married. I had a face a wife could bear to look at without vomiting. What do I have now?"

'If she was the right wife, she'd love you all the more.' I put in, 'Take it from me. Although I would suggest clearing up the maggot infestation. That one would be a deal breaker.' The writhing was too much for me.

"Nothing wrong with maggots." The Joker disagreed. "Best thing for a necrotizing wound, maggots. Very hygienic. They eat only the dead flesh, which prevents gangrene. Don't take Grace here too seriously, Harv. She's either a ghost with a grudge or a hell of a persistent hallucination."

"But if she's _your_ hallucination, how is it I can see and hear her, too?"

"Well, I like to share. You're losing focus. Stay with me here, Harvey Two-face. All those things you thought were yours—the career, the girl, your handsome face—they were never really yours, not yours to keep. All it took was one bad day—and poof! They're gone, like a snowflake landing in a river of toxic filth. You've been pared down to the bone, Harv—."

'Literally,' I snorted, looking at the attorney's naked yellow jawbone.

"—Just like me. What's left now is the _real_ you. And the only thing to do is show the rest of the world what it's like."

'The rest of the world already knows, damn it!' I exploded. 'Who are you? Two white guys living in the wealthiest, safest, most powerful, privileged, and complacent country on earth, and you're going "Poor me, poor me", when there are parts of sub-Saharan Africa where the percentage of the population with HIV tops eighty, and where in some areas of the Middle East, there are families who have to send their teenage daughters to the market knowing they'll be raped, because if they send anybody else, they'll be killed—.'

"All right, then we'll show America—." The Joker snapped back.

'Excuse me? 9/11 ring a bell? How about Hurricane Katrina?' I retorted.

"Okay, so it's Gotham we're going to show! Now shut—. No. Tell Harvey here what his alternatives are. Tell him what else he could do with his life. Remember, he's a murderer too. Give it your best shot, sweetie. Convince him."

'I—.' What could I say to convince this man whose face and life were ruined that he could still have a fulfilling and worthwhile existence?

"Tell him what he should do, starting now." The Joker commanded.

'He should kick your sorry purple ass out of here, take a shower, and go to the nearest hospital, for a start!' I shouted at the Joker, then turned to Dent. 'Yes, you'll have to be taken into custody, because you did kill three people. But I'm sure temporary insanity would apply, under the circumstances.'

"So they'd send me to Arkham instead." Dent rasped. "The prospect doesn't please me."

'It might not be Arkham. It could be Blackgate instead, if you cooperated.' I named a smaller, lower security asylum in a better part of town. 'The Batman has the resources and the desire to help you. Plastic surgery—.'

"—won't fix everything." The Joker interrupted. "Your face will still look weird and stiff. You'll still be blind in one eye, even if you replace it with a glass one."

'Will you let me finish?' I raged at him.

"Don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot, do you?" he taunted me. "What about the lovely Rachel? Will she rush back into his arms?"

'Maybe. Maybe not. After all, thanks to you she's just spent several months in solitary confinement without even a guard to talk to at mealtimes.'

"And what about his career? Will the DA's office be waiting for him to come back?"

'He can build another career—.'

"Doing what? Who's going to hire a weird-looking guy fresh out of the looney bin?"

'Oh, I'm sorry. Are we talking about him now or about you?' I riposted.

He ignored me. "And then there are alllll those criminals waiting to take a bite out of you, Harvey Two-Face. If that's the future, you're better off becoming maggot food here than making an effort to come back. Or—you can get into my racket."

'Don't listen to this. Evil is like a whirlpool. It pulls you in.' I exhorted Dent.

"Become your own crime wave. Get somebody to make you up some suits to match the new you—half Wall Street, half Skid Row—rob a few banks, hold some people for ransom. Decide who lives and who dies with the flip of a coin. Become such a big shark the little guys don't dare take a bite of you for fear of attracting your attention."

'Don't listen to him. He's a master manipulator. As you love Rachel, as she loved you, and may love you still—.'

"What could Rachel do for you now that another woman couldn't? Like Grace said, there are women who will get off more on you now than before. Beauty just_ loves_ the Beast. It's up to you, Harvey. Come to the Dark Side; we have cookies. The wages of sin are death, sure, but so is the salary of virtue, and sin is more fun."

'Maybe so,' I shot back, 'but virtue has a much better retirement plan.'

Dent finally got a word in edgewise. "I hear you. Both of you. You're right. I can't stay like this. So—." He reached into his pocket and brought out a coin. His coin.

"Let's see what I'm going to do."

'No!' I interjected. 'Not with the coin. That's a gimmick, a cheap piece of shtick. You are a human being. You have a soul. You have free will. Life is much more complicated and important than a simple yes or no question. Think about what you're doing before you choose.'

Harvey Dent shook his head. "This is how I do things." He flipped it, caught it on his arm, and uncovered it to reveal—the shiny, unscarred side. He smiled at it, then at me, and I could see the handsome, attractive man he had been. "I'll thank you to leave now, Joker. I'm going to take a shower and then go to the nearest hospital."

The Joker waited until we were out in the parking lot before he said, "I bet you think that means you won, don't you?"

'No. I know I lost. I lost from the moment he flipped that coin. _That_ was the deciding moment. Not what side came up. Because you're right, that walker's too drunk to get straight no matter if he staggers a few steps toward the middle. The only way to win the game is not to play at all.'

"Don't tell me you're giving up, Grace! Don't do it. Not ever. I don't want to win. Keep fighting! That's what makes you almost as much fun as Bats."

'Yeah, yeah.' I scoffed, but my mind was elsewhere. The Joker was right. The only way to stop the parade of characters like him, like Two-face, and all the others who would follow—was to make Batman give up being Batman.

I knew now who I was there to haunt until he gave in. Not the Joker.

It was Batman.


	21. Roses and Rain

White roses do not stand up well to rain. They quickly develop rusty spots and creases and eventually hang on their stems like limp gym socks. However, white roses were what Bruce had ordered to be placed fresh on Rachel's grave every three days, and the roses were there when they visited that grey and weeping morning.

"I'll have the gravestone taken away first thing Monday morning." he promised his friend, holding the umbrella over the two of them.

"Thanks." Rachel shivered.

"Are you cold? You can borrow my coat—." He was about to hand her the umbrella and shrug himself out of the garment, but she stopped him with a hand.

"No. I'm not cold. I just had that 'someone walked over my grave feeling'—if it isn't too gruesome to say that here."

"Yeah, it's ironic. The sad thing is, we may never know who she was. I—. Cremation seemed the best thing to do, under the circumstances." Bruce winced.

"Finishing up the job the Joker started, huh? Gordon must have been unhappy to hear that." Rachel knelt down and fussed with the roses.

"He was. They're going to comb the missing persons list, but if she was an out-of-towner, she may not even have been reported missing in Gotham. All we know is that she was more or less your height and build." Bruce held the umbrella over her, ignoring the rivulet of icy rain that trickled down his spine as a result.

"That's not a lot to go on. I'm average everything." She straightened up.

"You're not average _anything_."

The warmth in his eyes made her step back a pace. "Bruce—didn't Alfred give you my note?"

"What note?" The honest puzzlement in his voice told her he spoke the truth.

"I—it was a note telling you I was going to marry Harvey, Bruce. I love you. I have always loved you. I think I will always love you, but not the way you want. Maybe there was a time that it might have worked between us, but that moment passed. I can't put my life on hold waiting for a time that will never come—the time when you get over—putting on a bat costume and going out to wage war in the city streets."

"Rachel—you're stressed out. I appreciate that, but you don't—."

"Are you going to tell me I don't know what I'm saying? Are you going to pat me on the head and tell me I don't know what I_ feel_? How could I prefer _anybody_ to billionaire Bruce Wayne, especially when he's also the heroic Batman?"

"That wasn't what I was going to say!" They stood for a moment looking at one another. Rachel was breathing hard. Bruce continued. "I didn't know how to tell you this, but Harvey—The night Harvey disappeared, he killed three people. Detective Wuertz, Maroni, and Maroni's driver, a man named Schiavoni.

"Then he forced Detective Ramirez to call the guards off Gordon's family so he could take them hostage. He threatened to kill them, Rachel. He nearly killed Gordon's son. He had a gun to that little boy's head. He got away from me that night, because it was either save the boy's life or catch Harvey. He isn't the man we knew, Rachel. He's insane and a killer."

"No. Why—why would he do such a thing? Harvey wouldn't kill anyone. He believed in the law. He believed in justice!" Rachel's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes creased, welling up with tears.

"He was mad with pain—half his face was burned off. And mad with grief as well. Losing you broke something inside him, something more than his heart."

"No." She shook her head, trying to deny it. "No. Oh, God. He—he told me about his father, but, but, _he_ wasn't unstable. _He_ wasn't mentally ill. Where is he? You have billions of dollars, can't you find one man?"

"I've tried! I hired detectives, I searched myself—and Gordon and I, we tried to keep this under the rug. For Harvey's sake, for yours, and for Gotham's sake as well. I—Batman, that is—took the blame for as long as I could, but I couldn't make the witnesses say Batman was there when he wasn't. The lie fell apart."

"Lies always do." Rachel whispered. "Oh, this isn't real. This isn't happening."

"Miss Dawes!" The shout made their heads jerk around. Commissioner Gordon, followed by an aide who was trying to keep an umbrella over his boss's head, was marching double time through the cemetery toward them.

"What's wrong, Commissioner?" she asked.

"Miss Dawes, can you tell me where you were last night at around midnight?"

"I was at Bruce's penthouse. In the guest suite," she hastily explained, "talking to my mother on the phone. Why?"

"That's a secure building, isn't it? It has cameras and doormen 24-7? In other words, you can prove you were there then and didn't leave?"

"Yes, she can—if my word isn't good enough." Bruce put in. "What is this about, Commissioner?"

Gordon took a damp print-out from his inner pocket. "This was pulled off a surveillance camera at the Sleep-eze Motel out on Highway 83 by the airport."

He held it out for the two of them to see. They saw a motel parking lot. The Joker was crossing it carrying a twelve pack of beer, accompanied by a young woman in slim turquoise pants and a white blouse. Her dark hair covered her face and her shoes were decidedly pink.

"So this clears Rachel!" Bruce looked up at Gordon's brooding face.

"With any luck. There's more, though. At quarter past one this morning, Harvey Dent walked into the emergency room of Gotham Adventist Hospital and gave himself up. He's asking to see you, Miss Dawes. He's in…pretty bad shape, I have to warn you."

"What are we waiting for? Come on!" Rachel turned and sprinted for the parking lot through the drizzle.

"Is it safe?" Bruce asked Gordon in an undertone.

Gordon sighed. "He's restrained, and I have two officers there. But mentally—I don't know. He's going on about ghosts and angels and redemption. Try and prepare her for the worst."

"I will." Wayne vowed.


	22. Nothing's Gonna Harm You

A/N: Don't own the song lyrics quoted in here. They're Sondheim's.

* * *

A few hours before:

Grace was fairly quiet on the way back to the Boom Factory. Defeat makes some people moody, but I could tell from the occasional barbed comments she made that she wasn't beaten, just sulking. Then again, I was talking enough for the both of us, mostly about who else I could encourage to join out little game of Bait The Bat.

Arkham was practically a breeding ground for the type of mind that would enjoy a good Costumed Caper: for example, former staffer turned patient Dr. Jonathan Crane, with his scarecrow mask and his neurostimulant fear gas. Poor guy. He only just missed the party. Almost all the elements were there for him to be me: a sociopath with a specialization in a particular aspect of terror and a genius intellect, but he lacked my _vision_—and then he went and got political, throwing in with Ra's Al Ghul.

That's always fatal. They're all screaming little stupid monkeys, whatever group they are, mobs, governments, movements, and none of them is any better or any worse than any other. Take them for all they've got, and get out.

Where was I? Yeah. Grace was sulking when we got back to the Boom Factory. I unlocked the door, turned on the lights, and threw my hands over my eyes. "Owww!"

I'd only sent the more experienced of my lads out to look for Harvey. The noobies got the job of finding me some mirrors—big ones, little ones, fancy ones, plain ones—anything. Although I did have to tell them car mirrors alone wouldn't do it. By the time word came in that Harvey had been found, the Boom Factory had more mirrors than the Maze at Cavalier Park. Coming in as I had, with my eyes adjusted to the Gotham night, and then turning on all the lights, I was momentarily blinded.

I blinked. "Okay, why can't I see you now?" I asked her.

'Because I'm in your head. I figured, why should I go to the trouble of walking when you could give me a lift?'

"This hardly seems fair," I complained. "You can read my mind any time you want, but I can't read yours ever."

'Poor you.' She cooed sarcastically. 'I much prefer it this way, thank you. But I will get out of your head for the moment.' And there she was, reflected over and over in the glass, her face still hidden and her shoes still pink. I was getting used to both.

"That's better." I went to the kitchen. "I told Carter to go grocery shopping—ooh, jelly donuts!"

'Could you at least have a glass of orange juice and a banana before you tear into the junk food?' she asked. 'Please?'

"Aah, sure. What the hell." It didn't taste _that_ bad, and the good stuff was waiting for me, after all. Except it didn't taste that good. "Are you influencing my taste buds or something?" I asked through a mouthful of jelly.

'I don't think so. The only time I can taste what you taste is when I'm in your head. Let me—.' She disappeared. 'Uh. It does seem a little off. Maybe they're stale.'

"That must be it." I finished the first donut, but I didn't take another.

About half an hour later, I started feeling tired, stupid tired. Now once I'm going I can stay awake for days, but I do get tired eventually, so I didn't think anything of it. I just went to bed, unaware that those donuts had a secret special surprise mixed in with the jelly—a Mickey Finn. Knockout drops. Nor did I suspect that one of my lads had stayed behind, hidden in a cabinet, waiting for me to fall deeply asleep before doing a Trojan Horse, and letting in two others who also wanted to kill me.

* * *

Grace: 'At least you take off the makeup before you go to bed.' I commented as he smeared cold cream over his face.

"Why wouldn't I?" he asked, reaching for a wad of tissues. "It'd just rub off anyway."

'I don't take anything about you for granted.' I told him.

"Good." he decided after a moment's thought, then plunged his head and upper body into the depths of the utility sink.

He'd stripped down to his skivvies, and the sight was disturbing. Not because he was such a burning hunk of man-flesh that I couldn't keep my eyes off him, nor because he made my (non-existent) stomach turn at the sight of his flaccid and worm-like lack of musculature, but because of the scars. It looked as though he'd been rolled around the floor in a bag of broken glass, and for all either of us knew, he had. There were other scars as well. Burns and the occasional bullet hole.

Other than that, he was whip-cord lean. Clearly he mostly lived on his nerves.

'Don't forget to brush your teeth.' I reminded him.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mom."

I caught myself before I said the words: '_Do not. Ever. Call me Mom. Again._', because letting him know it bothered me would insure he never called me anything else, and I had not yet come up with a way of making him obey. Not yet. So instead I said, 'Whatever.'

He spat blood out into the sink with the used toothpaste froth, rinsed, and went off to bed. I went along, not having anything better to do. Besides, I could feel his fatigue. And it was a little after two in the morning. He curled up in bed, and I curled up inside his head. We slept.

A couple of hours later, I woke up from his dream, a nightmare which left him crying out in terror, but, in true dream fashion, one which I could not recall seconds after I woke. "Aaaaah." He croaked in his sleep. "AaaaaahAAAAAh!"

I slipped out of his head. 'Joker. You're having a bad dream. Wake up. It's okay. You're here with me, Grace. Wake up!' But he didn't.

'Oops.' I said, catching sight of myself in the mirrors. It was just as well he didn't wake up immediately. Apparently if I didn't think about what I was wearing, I wore nothing at all. I hastily imagined myself in a very modest white nightgown.

I tried to stroke his forehead, but he couldn't feel my touch. So I sang to him instead. If he'd ever had a mother who held him, if she'd ever sang to him, perhaps he'd be soothed.

' Nothing's gonna harm you. Not while I'm around. Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir. Not while I'm around.' It was a song from Sweeney Todd, sung by one of the only innocents in the story, the boy Toby Ragg to the maker of cannibalistic pies, Mrs Lovett. How ironic. How appropriate.

'Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays, I'll send them howling, I don't care, I got ways.' This was a very bad dream, I knew that, even if I didn't remember the details. Clowns and children and knives—all the things one would think he would like, but turned around so he was the victim.

That, perhaps, was the worst part of it. He was a victim. Nobody becomes a monster in a void. Happy, loving families and normal childhoods don't make for psychopaths. He was broken so badly he couldn't be fixed, not until someone came up with a recipe for turning omelets back into eggs. 'No one's gonna hurt you, No one's gonna dare. Others may desert you—.'

There was a lot to loathe about him. But for all the horror he was, I also liked him, too. Trading verbal jabs with him _was_ fun. We had a strange kind of chemistry. Probably the kind that would go 'Kabloom' one day and take the roof off. And I felt pity for him, which was why I was singing to him now. 'Not to worry. Whistle, I'll be there.'

It was working. The creases of terror were smoothing out on his face, the hard tension of his body easing up. 'Demons'll charm you, with a smile, for a while…'

Then I heard something. "Shhh! Don't make too much noise. He only ate one donut. If he wakes up before we cap him, we're dead."

"No guns!" someone else hissed urgently, and none too discreetly. And far too close for comfort. "Not in the Boom Factory!"

"Shit, man!" This was a third voice. "All that stuff's at the other end of the building. I don't wanna get that close to him, in case one donut wasn't enough. Look in the mirror, stupid! Is he asleep?"

"Damn! He's got his shorty there with him." _Shorty_? Did he mean _me_?

"You mean that chick that was on the news? Well, then we have to do her too. Can't go leaving witnesses."

I had seen the footage in question. Living eyes couldn't see me, but mirrors and cameras could. Hence, they could see me—when they looked in the mirror. No point in trying to rouse the Joker. I'd already tried.

Option A: I could take over his body, and try and get us out of there before he/we took a bullet somewhere fatal. Downside: they blocked the only way out, and I didn't know how to fight.

Option B: I was (possibly, the jury was still out) a ghost. What do ghosts do best? Scare people. And I was a big fan of Asian horror movies. There's a reason Hollywood keeps making progressively worse re-makes of Asian fright flicks: they're scary as hell.

I knew just what to do. I started creeping over the bed as though I were feeling my way out of my grave, moving as though I were relearning being in a body, then slid to the floor. Draw their attention away from the bed, away from him…

"She heard us. She's getting up!" A head poked around the corner, followed by a hand with a gun. I drew myself up, jerkily, one shoulder slanted up high, the other low, making myself crooked, and took a shuffling step, then another.

"There's nobody there!" the head said inching more of himself into the room. He was one of the 'expendables'. It might have been Carter; I hadn't been paying attention that afternoon. "I'm looking right where she outta be, and there ain't nobody there!"

"That isn't funny. I can see her. Cap her, man! _What_ is she _doing_? Can't she walk right?" Another step. More ease now, but still moving in a way that wasn't quite human. And further away from the bed.

"There's nobody there! She's in the mirrors, but there ain't nobody there! Oh, shit. Oh, _shit_!" Did the criminal fraternity _have_ to have such a limited and unoriginal vocabulary? I started for him, raising my hands as if I were feeling my way along.

Damn. This was kind of …fun.

Should I be worried about that?

The shouting was starting to rouse the Joker. I could see his reflection. Hopefully he would keep his head down.

Another head poked around the doorframe. "Holy—. Get the mirrors! If she's only there in the mirrors, break all of them!"

A third expendable came into the room. And how did these dim bulbs decide to break the mirrors? By shooting at them. Shooting indiscriminately is not a good way to solve problems. Yet there was one positive result: the Joker was now _awake_, if somewhat foggy, and he had a throwing knife. "Do _not_ bust caps in here!" he roared.

The drug had no effect on his throwing arm, and a blood rose bloomed out of the neck of the thug closest to the door. He fell. His buddy fled. That left one.

I continued my steady approach toward the first expendable, who backed up, stumbling over his own feet, and fell. He was not a healthy color. Scrabbling backward on hands and feet, he cut himself on the broken mirror, but kept going until he hit the wall, where he made motions as if he were trying to dig through to the other side with his shoulder blades. A stain appeared on his crotch and spread.

I bent down over him, to the point where my hair would have swept his face, and his eyes rolled up in his head.

Then he made a funny little noise, sort of a…rattle.

"You can back off him now, Gracie."

'Out for the count?' I asked, straightening up.

"Out _forever_. That was a death rattle. I ought to know, I've heard enough of them. He must have had a weak heart."

'I didn't mean to kill him! I only wanted to scare him a little—okay, _a lot_. Not kill him.'

"Too late. Don't let it bother you, sweetheart; the first one's always the hardest."

'But he's dead.' I said, numbly. This was something beyond my immediate comprehension.

"This guy's ready for the river, too." He kicked the guy with the knife in the throat, then shook his head. "Tastes like a mouse died in my mouth. What the hell happened?"

I explained. He laughed at inappropriate moments. "Hoo-hoo-hoo. Oh, talk about looks that can kill. You bring a whole new meaning to the phrase 'drop-dead gorgeous'!"

'This isn't funny!'

"_Yes_, it is. What if you saw this scene in a movie? Would it be funny then?"

'This is not a movie.'

"It's the movie of my life, and it's a comedy. I'm going to take out the trash, here, and lock up. The third guy, if he has any sense, is three states away by now, and if he doesn't, then he'll keep. Be right back for the other."

'What are you going to do with the bodies?' I asked, hoping no meat pies would enter into it.

"This is a prime piece of riverfront property. Experience tells me they'll fetch up around about…pier six at high tide." He took the first corpse under the armpits and dragged it away.

I was still trying to assimilate what had happened. I had only meant to scare him—all in fun.

But they'd been out to kill him/me.

And I'd killed one of them.

I hadn't meant to. That meant it wasn't murder, was it? It was more like involuntary manslaughter.

It had been so easy, so quick. Only one breath separated the living from the dead. Such a little thing.

The Joker came back for the second corpse.

I'd just been having fun…

Then my host returned, dusting off his hands. "Whoo-haa! Grace, I wouldn't trade you for a whole store full of new knives and a busload of first graders to test them out on. You are going to be so, uh, _useful_."

'For the sake of the six-year-olds, I'm delighted.' I replied. 'But why do you say that?'

"Because you just coming up with new facets of yourself. I can see you now without the mirrors. When that guy died, Poof! There you were. I wonder…if killing him made you change, made you…stronger?"

'God, I hope not.'

"And it just makes me wonder…what's going to happen to you next."

Now I was definitely worried.


	23. An Impasse

Over Bruce's objections, Rachel went with Commissioner Gordon in his car.

"How is he?" she asked.

"You—," he hesitated, "You had better look at these first, Miss Dawes. You'll be better prepared that way." He took another print-out from his inner pocket and handed it to her, then looked away, giving her at least that much personal space.

At first glance, she thought someone had taken a photograph of Harvey and then used software to replace the left side of his face with an anatomical sketch. There were the muscles, the tendons, the bones, all exposed to view.

"I don't—." Then she realized it was too messy, imperfect, real. "No. Oh, how he must be suffering—." She shut her eyes, tight, childishly trying to wish away the sight. Her hand tightened on the paper, crumpling it. "What do the doctors say?"

"If he hadn't refused all treatment and disappeared—well, he did, there's no use saying if. He's lost the sight in his left eye. That's permanent. Some of the soft tissues died because of the loss of circulation, which will make any grafts much more difficult to do. But that's not the worst of it. He developed a massive ear infection, which in turn infected the bones, it's called mastoiditis—and then it spread to the brain. He has—he has acute bacterial meningitis."

"Oh, God!" Rachel had lost a friend to meningitis when in college. She knew how dangerous it was.

Gordon continued. "They say it can come on very suddenly. It's a wonder how he got himself to the hospital at all. He can't stand bright light or loud noises, he can't move his neck—he could barely walk. They started him on empiric antibiotics immediately, and they tapped his spinal fluid to try and relieve the pressure on his brain. As a result, he's suffering what they call mental impairment—confusion, disorientation, delirium—and paranoid delusions. He might be talking to you normally one moment, and the next, he'll be calling you the foulest things he can think of, accusing you of—Or he might not."

"Harvey." she said, but it came out as a squeak. "What's his prognosis?"

"Most people recover fully." Gordon dissembled.

"Percentages, Jim." She hardly ever used the Commissioner's first name, but this was the moment for it if there ever was one.

He sighed. "Eighty percent make a full recovery. Ten percent die. The other ten—suffer permanent brain damage."

_And if he's already mentally ill, that could be like throwing a can of gasoline on a fire. Oh, Harvey_.

* * *

Grace: 'Oh, no. I'm not going to, and _you can't make me_.'

The Joker and I were facing off in his bedroom at the Boom Factory, with broken mirrors everywhere, a tumbled, askew bed, and blood trails on the floor. An artistic director would have approved, as it matched our emotional states.

Through trial and error, I had determined that I could, with an effort, still disappear from his sight and could still get inside his head quite easily, but I couldn't hide from mirrors or cameras no matter what I did. Maybe I was some sort of antivampire—instead of being a body without a soul, I was a soul without a body. I wasn't, therefore, Undead, but Unalive.

That failed to address my growing abilities. My range of motion grew by the hour—I could now get a hundred feet away from him in all directions, including straight down and straight up, with full visibility no matter what or where—and I could stay away longer, but my personal universe was still Joker-centric, more's the pity.

Now he wanted to go out into the world to see if others could see me with or without mirrors—and to try out my Glare of Death.

'There's nothing you can bribe me with and nothing you can threaten me with.' I crossed my arms and glared at him.

"Oh, reall-ly." He drew out the word. "What about ice cream?"

'Excuse me? How old do you think I am, five?'

"Less than four days old, by my reckoning."

'Anyhow, you'd be the one who'd get to eat it. I'd have to share your tastebuds.'

"And what a hardship _that_ would be. What about _diamonds_? There's an ad in _The Gothamite_ for a very very yummy fancy pink—."

I just snorted at that suggestion. 'Try coming up with something that would mean anything to me.'

"Something that would have meaning for you. What if I were to do a _good deed_?"

'For you, doing a good deed would take no more than sitting at home quietly all day. You wouldn't know a good deed if it came up and bit you in the ass. The best you could manage would be to _not_ do a _bad_ deed.'

"You think not?" he asked. "Well, you could be right. Okay, if bribes are out, what about threats?"

'I don't bleed and I'm bulletproof. Poisons won't work and neither will explosives.'

"I didn't mean I was going to threaten you. I know I can't. I was thinking of threatening _other people_. I wonder how many dead children it would take before you'd cooperate?"

'Try it,' I bluffed, 'and I will start to sing. Loudly. Incessantly. All day. All night. I'll start with "100 Bottles of Beer" and repeat it until I get bored. Then it'll be old show tunes, Christmas Carols, The Carpenters, teen death ballads—until your brains melt and ooze out of your nose and you _scream_ for mercy. You won't be able to sleep or think or make an explosive more powerful than a handful of Mentos in a bottle of cola. You'll be begging Batman to take you back to Arkham by the time I'm through with you.'

"Uh, that sounds…interesting. Do you want to put that to the test?"

'Do you? Anyway, if other people can see me, than _I_ can communicate with them. What if I were to imagine a big piece of paper with this address—or any address you care to move to—written on it? Damn, that's a good idea. I might do that anyway.'

"Hmmm. It seems we're at what they, uh, call an _impasse_ here…"


	24. Reunion

The hospital had dimmed the lights in his room and placed screens to shield Harvey from both the sun and the eyes of the curious. They had also placed him so his intact side was facing any visitor who came in. A uniformed police officer sprang to his feet as the Commissioner entered; Gordon nodded him out. "I can't leave you entirely alone with him," he told Rachel in an undertone, "but I can stand here in the doorway and chat about the weather with Wayne."

"Thank you, Jim." she replied.

He half-smiled, half-winced in response, and left her to pick her way over and around the cords and pieces of medical equipment to the bed.

Harvey seemed to be asleep. Tubes ran into and out of him in various places—his arms, his nose, snaking out from under the blankets. Tubes with pure oxygen, tubes with clear colorless liquids, with cloudy liquids, with red liquids and yellow ones. Rachel had never liked looking at IVs or injections. When she donated blood, she always had to avert her eyes because the alternative was throwing up and/or passing out. She focused on her beloved's face instead. _Oh, Harvey…._

"Harvey," she whispered, remembering that he could bear neither loud noises nor bright light. "Sweetheart? It's me. It's Rachel."

His right eye opened; the left was obscured by a wad of gauze. "Rachel? You came—you're here."

"Yes. Yes, I am. I'm right here," She placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart. "You can see me and feel me and I can feel you and see you, and I_ love_ you. We're alive, and as long as that's true, nothing can be that bad."

"I knew it. She said—she said—if you were the right one, you'd love me even more." He smiled, or tried to, and licked his lips with a thickened, arid tongue. "Muh-my-mouth's dry, an' I can't swallow just now. There's a cup a'watter with sponge sticks there—could you?"

"Of course." She took one of the wands and moistened his dry lips before letting him suck out the few milliliters trapped in the absorbent foam.

"S'better. I can't talk much, so you…talk…to me. Tell…me what happened to you."

"Okay." She brought a chair up to the bedside, took her place, and put her hand over his, restrained as it was. "We were talking, and I thought it was for the last time, that it was goodbye."

His neck was too stiff for him to nod. "Yss."

"I want you to know I meant _and still mean_ every word of it, Harvey. _Every word_. Then the phone blew up, and instead of an explosion, it fizzled out. I thought the Joker had set things up wrong, but once I got out of the ropes and the chair, I unstoppered one barrel, and then another and another. They were full of water, nothing but water."

"Where—were you?" Harvey asked.

"I was in an old bomb shelter, deep underground. Everything there was from the fifties—the army rations, the old sleeping bags, the cover alls—even the pamphlets telling you what to do after a nuclear attack occurred. There were first aid kits, a set of the World's One Hundred Greatest Books, Unabridged, chemical toilets—." She winced.

"What there wasn't, was an exit door that opened, or any tools. Or a radio. The only phone was a puddle of melted plastic. There were lights, but I never found out where the power came from. That was where I've been, until Batman rescued me. Without a clock or the sun, I lost all sense of time. I slept when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, washed when I felt dirty—there was plenty of water, but no soap. I searched for a way out or to get someone's, anyone's attention, and when I wasn't doing any of those things, I read. I read every one of the One Hundred Greatest Books twice, cover to cover, and some of them even more often. But you know what I never stopped doing, not even while I was searching or reading or eating or sleeping?"

"Nuh." he replied.

"I thought about _you_."

His hand twisted in the restraint, trying to take hers. "Tried…not to…think bout you…'cause it hurt…too much."

"Do you want another sponge?"

"Yss." She moistened his mouth and lips again.

"When you're better, you must tell me all about what happened to you." she told him.

"You…won't like it. 'M…ashamed of it."

"Whatever you have to tell me, it doesn't change anything," she promised, "because you're here and I'm here and we're alive and I love you."

"Love…you…too." His remaining eye bathed her with such hope and sincerity that she had to get up and bend over him to lay her head down on his heart, as awkward as such an embrace was, so she could blot her tears on the hospital gown. It was all right. Harvey would be all right. She could believe it.

* * *

At the doorway, Bruce Wayne cleared his throat. Talking to James Gordon was risky, he knew. The older man was a trained and experienced detective. Change his voice though he might when he patrolled Gotham City as Batman, there was the possibility that his friend would recognize some idiosyncratic characteristic and put two and two together.

Yet he had to say something, or they would overhear a very private moment, one which could only be painful for him to share. "So—any headway yet as to the Joker's mystery lady?"

"This is hardly a fit subject for flippancy, Mr. Wayne." Commissioner Gordon glowered at him.

"I'm not being flippant!" he defended himself. "Rachel's name is already being bandied about in the media. I want this woman identified as much as you do!"

"I doubt that—but no. However, by comparing her height against the Joker's, and allowing for her shoes, we can say she's approximately 5'8" to 5'9-1/2" and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 to 130 pounds. Neither of which helps to clear Miss Dawes, as she is 5'9" and according to her driver's license, weighs 110 pounds. We always mentally add at least ten pounds to any weight a woman puts on her driver's license."

"I see—What about those shoes? I'd have thought they would be easy to trace."

"Those shoes," Gordon uttered with a special loathing. "No one--not a single woman connected to the Police Department, not the senior shoe buyer for Neiman-Marcus, nor the Curator of Costume and Fashion at the Gotham Museum of Art, can place the brand or designer of those shoes. They can't even agree on what color to call them. I never knew there were so many different shades of pink! Magenta, fuschia, shocking pink, cerise, orchid, Schiaparelli pink--All they can tell me is that they're pumps with a two and a half inch heel and they're probably made of nubuck."

"Um." Wayne hummed sympathetically. "Sounds like they're custom-made, like the Joker's clothes."

"Which we haven't managed to trace either. And _another_ thing about those shoes. This has to be a female thing. Every woman who's seen a picture of them gets this look on her face like my wife's when she's watching a Kevin Costner movie."

"Mrs. Gordon is a fan of Kevin Costner, I take it."

"Uh, yeah. We're happily married, you understand, and I probably get the same look when I'm watching Michelle Pfeiffer, but I would never look like that at a pair of shoes."

"Maybe not a pair of shoes, but what about a sports car?" Wayne cocked an eyebrow at the Commissioner.

"A sports car, yes, but not a pair of shoes."

They continued in that vein for a few more minutes until Rachel's cry of distress interrupted them. "No, Harvey! Let go. You're hurting me!"


	25. Bits and Pieces

Harvey's fingertips could only just stroke her hair, a loving, familiar gesture. She moved a little closer to his hand.

"So…Batman… rescued you. That wss…good of him." So weak and hoarse was his voice that she could hear him better this way, her head against his chest, than when she was bending over him.

"Yes," she replied hesitantly. This was the weakest part of her story, and she knew it. "He got the information out of the Joker."

"And… you went… to Brucsss." Harvey rasped.

"Only because I couldn't go to you." she explained.

"You ssspent…night w'him." It was not a question. It was a statement, and even allowing for his current difficulty in speaking, it sounded accusatory.

"I spent it in his penthouse. In the guest suite." she informed him, puzzled.

"Where'd _he_…sssleep?" Harvey asked.

"I don't know. I only know he wasn't with me. You don't have to be jealous of Bruce, Harvey. He's like an older brother to me. That's all. And that's all he's ever been."

'_He'szzz_ in luv… w'_you_."

"I can't do anything about that—and he isn't, not really. I'm just a connection to a time when he was happier. Someday he'll realize that."

She had noticed Harvey's insecurities before, and given what he had been through, it was only natural that they should surface now. However, he sounded more suspicious than insecure.

"An' he'szz ssso… rich. Han'some, too." Harvey went on as if he hadn't heard her.

"So? I fell in love with you because when I looked at you, I could imagine what a future with you would be like, and I liked what I saw. With Bruce—all I could see was waiting. Waiting for him to grow up."

"What kind a'future… do y'imagine w'me now?" The fingers which had been stroking her head so gently now twined and gripped her hair.

"Please don't do that, Harvey. It isn't comfortable." She tried to straighten up, but he was holding on too tightly.

"Ans'r…question!"

Now his hold was painful. He yanked, and her head jerked sideways, hitting the metal bedrail. "No, Harvey! Let go. You're hurting me!"

* * *

How might it have ended, had Bruce and Jim Gordon not been there to pry her out of his grasp? Rachel Dawes wet a paper towel and dabbed at her eyes, swollen and red with weeping. There was a thin pink welt on her forehead where the metal bedrail had marked her. It didn't hurt that bad—not physically, at any rate. It was her heart which hurt.

Harvey was ill, she reminded herself. Mentally impaired. Bacterial meningitis was a serious illness…but he had already killed three people before he caught that infection.

The worst of it was that he was still recognizably Harvey Dent—it was just as if the darker side of him, the insecurity, the jealousy, the fear of seeming less than other men—had grown to equal the good in him, the brightness which shone like the sun in her sky. There was nothing there she hadn't seen in him before, only now it was written larger and bolder, no longer subtext.

Her heart was breaking even as she looked in the mirror, and she could do nothing about it.

* * *

"Hmm. It seems that we're at what they, uh, call an _impasse_ here…"

I looked at Grace, who had slumped down in the corner. Yeah, she wasn't doing so great. She was still fighting, but she was taking her first kill rough. I remembered…okay, I didn't remember specifics, but the emotions, those I recalled. There was a time that taking a life bothered me. It's something you get over, though, and, like sex, around about the third time, you really start to enjoy it.

'That's a comparison I could live quite happily without ever having heard.' observed my telepathic ghost. 'What's bothering me most is that I'm hardly feeling anything at all. My humanity is draining away and I don't know what to do about it.'

I didn't think I was qualified to reply to that. I liked Sassy!Grace much better than Emo!Grace, but I wasn't sure how to console her. So I said, "None of this is getting the broken mirrors cleaned up, and it's not smart to leave all of these shards around where I walk in my bare feet. Since you can't handle a broom, I guess that leaves me."

What could I do or say to get my ghost-gal out of her funk?

"Y'know, maybe it wasn't you." I said on my return, broom in hand. "Ten broken mirrors, that's seventy years of bad luck all in one go. That could be enough to kill anybody." I started sweeping the shiny fragments together.

'Not helping.' she groaned from her huddle in the corner. Just what I needed: a depressed ghost around the place.

But it was so much easier to hold a conversation when I could look at her directly—and there was something to see. Her nightgown was rucked up around her knees, and if I could just find the right angle, I could look right up it—.

She jerked the hem down to her ankles. 'Hentai,' she scolded, but I could tell her heart wasn't really in it.

"I'm a man. I _have_ to look." I explained. "It comes with having balls. And men are, um, very visual when it comes to turn-ons. It doesn't take a lot. What does it for women?" I asked. I'd always been curious about that.

'That depends. Anyhow, right now I'm not troubled by any desires of the flesh because I don't _have_ any flesh. And I want to stay out of wherever it is in your head that your libido is lurking.'

"That could explain why you're not more upset." I told her. "Could you, uh, move your legs so I could sweep under—never mind." The broom passed right through her. It was getting easier and easier to forget she wasn't a real flesh-and-blood girl.

'You're just trying to make me feel better.' She stated.

"Is it working?"

'Maybe. What do you mean it explains why I'm not more upset?'

"A lot of emotional response depends on physical reaction to stress, right? The heart speeds up, adrenaline flows, the palms get sweaty, you breathe hard—all that tells you you're upset. You don't have any of those responses because you don't have a body. All you have is your intellectual reaction, and that just, uh, doesn't have the same juice. Why should you be upset, intellectually? You didn't know him. You didn't mean to kill him. It was an accident."

'You could be right.' She seemed to be perking up. 'That would also explain why I'm not more horrified by you than I am. I should be hardly functional at all in response to your general…everything, but instead I kind of like you.'

"You _like_ me?" I leaned on my broom for a moment. Funny, that gave me a warm feeling somewhere inside, like watching one of my fires burn while I listened to the crackling and roaring of the flame, not to mention the people screaming for help.

'Well, to use playground parlance, obviously I don't _like you _like you. Just in a sort of friendly way.'

"Which is doubly strange, considering that I almost certainly murdered you—but I can't remember when or how or why. You ought to be pissed off at me."

'Even if we find out you _did_ kill me, I don't know how angry I'd be about it.' she said. 'I've been thinking about that. I'm not saying you did me any favor by killing me, if you did, but it's clear to me that my afterlife, if that is what this is, is a whole hell of a lot more interesting than my life could possibly have been.' Much perkier.

"Now that's my gal." I cheered her on.

'I am not now, and will never be, your "gal".' she spat at me with blistering contempt. Just how I liked her.

"Never say never!" I winked at her.


	26. Fifty Four

A/N: Not just another chapter. Major stuff going on here. Inspired in part by the j-horror flick Suicide Circle.

* * *

Unbeknownst to any save the engineer of the event, what was to be called the worst tragedy in Gotham City's history was beginning. In households all over the city, sixty girls, all between the ages of nine and fourteen, were seized with an inexorable impulse to go to Gotham Central Subway Station.

The time was 10:30 AM.

* * *

Bruce was quite grateful when his cell phone rang, because it gave him something to do besides hang around outside the ladies' room with Gordon feeling—well, feeling like he wanted to go back in that room and punch Harvey's lights out, which he couldn't do, given the man's condition. He also wanted to hold Rachel in his arms and tell her it would be all right, but he couldn't do that either.

As it turned out, the call was from one of his girlfriends, Talia. A sultry Eurasian beauty with brown hair and eyes, she was the most confident woman he had ever met. She had fantastic legs, a sexy accent, and sufficient money that it was clear she was not pursuing him for his. "Hello, Talia."

"Beloved!" Ever since they had become intimate, Talia had called him that. Sometimes he found it endearing, other times—like now, with Rachel crying her eyes out behind a locked door—he found it irritating. Talia continued. "Please say you'll come and lunch with me today at Le Champs. You need only bring yourself and your appetite. All else I shall arrange."

"I—I'm sorry, Talia. At the moment, I'm visiting a friend in the hospital, and I have a house guest. Maybe another time."

"If the television is to be believed, your guest is your friend Rachel Dawes. Is that so, Beloved?"

"Yes, and she's—."

"I should be most honored to have your childhood friend as my guest, Beloved. She will tell me about how naughty you were as a little boy, then I shall tell her about how naughty you are as a big boy, and we shall laugh at your expense."

"I'm sorry, Talia. We'll have to take a raincheck. This isn't a good day for lunch."

"You sadden me, Beloved." He liked Talia well enough, both in and out of bed, but there were times she was way more serious than he liked.

"If we were to have lunch with you, we'd sadden you even more."

"You could _never_ do that, Beloved. At least tell me you will not spend the whole day downtown. That could only depress you more."

"No. I don't know exactly what our plans are, but as far as I know, downtown doesn't enter into it." He wondered why she was so insistent, but Talia could be hard to read.

"Then farewell for now, Beloved. I shall mark the hours."

"Talk to you later." He broke the connection, and just in time, for Rachel was emerging from the women's room. "How are you doing? I got you an icepack for your forehead, if you need it?" He lifted the condensation-dewed bag from a cart next to him.

"No, thanks. I don't need it. I'm—well, I'm all right." she said, although it was patently untrue.

"Ms. Dawes, how about if we go get a cup of coffee?" Commissioner Gordon suggested. "I have a favor to ask you. It's nothing big. It's just that I have a hunch, but I don't know where it's leading me…"

* * *

Of the sixty girls, one had the flu, and when the impulse came, was too sick to leave the house. Another was out of town for the weekend and much too far away to get there in time. Fifty-eight girls got ready to go.

The time was 10:53 AM.

* * *

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? When it's the ocean crashing against a massive rock, the waves break around it, yielding to its strength—but over time, the rock wears away, while the ocean prevails. In this instance, I was the ocean, and Grace, the rock.

'Um, the ocean's been crashing against the Rock of Gibraltar for a long, long time, but the Rock doesn't seem to be going anywhere.' Grace refuted.

(After some debate, we had come to an agreement: we would go out together, and she would try to make herself seen by other people. She promised not to reveal my identity or address, and I agreed not to make her kill anybody or to kill anyone myself. And I am a man of my word.)

'I'm curious as to whether other people can see me too. However…it's going to be a short experiment if you're planning on going out in your purple suit with your full face on.'

"Don't worry. I always have a suit for occasions when I want to attract less notice, and I keep a jar of spackle on hand."

'…spackle?'

"Not literally spackle. The kind of makeup they use in the movies to make guys with deep acne scars look as smooth as a baby's butt. I'll go get ready."

'Where will we be going?'

"After the jelly donuts, I don't trust any of the groceries Carter brought back. I'll dump it all in the river, and we'll go get replacements."

'...is there anyway I could persuade you to find a dumpster rather than pollute some more?'

* * *

The fifty-eighth girl had ADHD, and while getting ready, got so involved in an IM session that she lost all track of time. The fifty-seven was grounded already, and got caught by her mother when she tried to sneak out of the house. Fifty-six girls left their respective houses and apartments.

The time was 11:00 AM.

* * *

"So, Commissioner, what was it you wanted to ask me about?" Rachel asked, looking up from the depths of her coffee. The hospital's café wasn't Starbucks, but it would do.

"These shoes." He brought out the printout of the Joker and the unidentified woman once again.

"These—you have a hunch about her shoes?" Rachel looked from the page to the Commissioner and back again.

"I know, I know, but if you could, I'd be grateful."

Rachel studied the photograph carefully. "I don't know..." she began.

* * *

The fifty-sixth girl was texting a friend so frantically she missed a step, fell and twisted an ankle so badly she could not walk. The fifty-fifth just missed her connecting bus. Fifty-four girls gathered at Gotham Central Subway Station.

The time was 11:30.

* * *

Bruce sat back and listened. "If I were to tell you, you'd laugh." Rachel said after a long pause.

"No. I wouldn't. I promise."

"Yes, you will, but what does it matter?" She paused again. "Most little girls want to be just like their mommies when they grow up, and one day, you go for it, while she's out in the yard or grocery shopping or something, and nobody's watching you closely. So you put on her perfume, enough to make the dog rub its nose, and you try on her favorite dress. Then you sit down at her vanity or stand on a stool at the sink, and get into her makeup. Then you put on one of her necklaces. Last of all, because they're so hard to walk in, you put on her shoes. Her special shoes. Her high heels.

"When you look at yourself in the mirror, you don't see what anybody else does. Your mom gets mad because you made such a mess, while everybody else says 'How cute', and goes for a camera. You see yourself, made whole, all grownup. Beautiful. Powerful—yes, powerful. It's an exciting moment, when your confidence and self-esteem are at their peak. You feel like a fairy princess. You know the future is going to bring wonderful things—you'll be a movie star, an astronaut, a tennis champ, a doctor, a mommy, the President of the United State, and you can't wait."

Rachel spread her hands, mimicking a small explosion. "Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there, because soon enough, they get you."

"They?" Bruce asked.

"They. The Mean Girls, the wheels of the economy, the eternal happiness machine, everything. You don't know what I'm talking about. Well, just listen. I have a friend whose eight year old daughter drinks only diet sodas and hasn't touched a dessert or candy since 2005. Not because she's diabetic, but because she doesn't want to get fat."

Gordon's brow furrowed. "Wait a minute. I have a daughter about that age, and—."

"Has she ever wished she were prettier—that she had different hair or eyes of a different color, or anything like that?" Rachel asked.

"I don't know."

"She will. Wait and see. You get the message early and you get it drummed into you over and over: nothing else about you is as important as how you look. It doesn't matter if you're smart or nice or funny. If you aren't attractive, you're not in the game. Don't try to argue this with me. They've done studies—if you send two girls out on a job hunt with the same resume, only one of them is attractive while the other one isn't—it's the pretty one who gets the call-backs and the job offers."

Bruce snorted. "But you're beautiful, so you won, right?"

"No. You're forgetting all those years when I had a flat chest, braces, and acne. Anyhow, even if someone's lucky enough to win the genetic jackpot or can afford plastic surgery, it isn't enough. There's always someone taller, someone thinner, someone with prettier teeth or a bigger chest or better hair—or else they're younger. And the women you date, Bruce, are the worst. All they have are their looks, and when they're gone, they have nothing left to fill that void. There are entire industries that trade on women's insecurities—the garment industry, cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, chains of diet centers, the fitness and exercise industry—all of them trying to sell you that special something that will make your life complete. All you have to do is find the right shade of lipstick, or deodorant, or—."

"Or the right pair of shoes." Commissioner Gordon interjected.

"Or the right pair of shoes," Rachel agreed, "and you'll feel like you felt at age four or five, when all it took was a dash of your mother's lipstick and a pair of her shoes. That's why so many women go berserk about their weddings: they're trying to recapture that fairy-princess magic. Only they can't. Nothing you can buy, nothing you can wear can make everything perfect. Cinderella's glass slippers don't fit you anymore. Whether you buy into it or deliberately go counter to it, by stopping shaving your legs and wearing Birkenstocks the rest of your life, you can't escape it."

"And these shoes?" Gordon brought the topic back to the printout again. "Something about them makes you think about that time in your life, and what you've lost?"

"Yes. It's hard to say why, exactly. Their shape, the heel height are classic. A woman could wear them from church to brunch, from the boardroom to go out clubbing. The color-it's bold, it's daring, but it's feminine. You look at them, and you think: in those, I'd feel like Thelma and Louise rolled into one, plus Juliet, Joan of Arc, and Cleopatra. Yet I don't know why. They're just shoes." Rachel put down the page.

Gordon picked it up again. "Worn by a girl who's a fool if she thinks he won't slice up her face—or her throat—as soon as look at her." He commented.

"So—," Bruce sat forward. "Why do you think people don't remember seeing her? Is she some kind of ghost?"

Gordon looked at him with the expression a teacher reserves for the class clown. "No. I don't think she's a ghost. The Joker is a genius; we know that from Arkham's IQ test results. I think he came up with a transmitter that tells the brain not to notice the person who's holding it, and then I think he put it in the heel of one of her shoes."

"Isn't that a little…far-fetched?" Bruce asked lazily.

"No more so than a gas which induces fear when you breathe it." Gordon was terse. "And rather less so than ghosts, I might add."

* * *

The time was 11:42 AM. Fifty-four girls who had been standing around casually, as anyone might who was waiting for their train, now stepped forward to the front of the platform. The computerized sign told all and sundry that the E5 express to Goodwin Yards would be coming through without stopping in three minutes.

11:43 AM. The girls linked hands. All around them, their fellow commuters watched with some amusement. What were they up to? Some game? Would they start a cheer?

11:44 AM. "All right?" one of the girls called out. "Okay."

In unison, the group chanted "One!", swinging their hands and flexing their knees.

"Two!" Another swing, another quick knee bend.

It was 11:45 AM. The southbound express to Goodwin Yards turned the bend and continued through the station as scheduled, without slowing or stopping.

"Three!" Simultaneously, with smiles on their faces, fifty-four girls between the ages of nine and fourteen threw themselves under the oncoming train.

* * *

A/N: Quite an ending, huh? I promise it will all get tied together--the Joker and Grace, the shoes, Batman, Rachel, and all.


	27. Doll Parts

Blood is considered a hazardous substance, not in and of itself, but for the contagious it may carry: hepatitis, HIV, many other less well-known but no less dangerous pathogens.

Gotham Central Subway Station was therefore an extremely dangerous place at the moment. In places, blood had sprayed the walls almost to the high-vaulted ceilings. Built in the shape of a Maltese cross, its four limbs of equal length, the east-west track was awash with blood, which pooled and did its best to trickle down the storm drains, but the drains were blocked with clots and…other debris.

Were it not for the red and the blobby organs which spilled out, one might almost think a giant puppy had been playing with a child's rag doll collection, leaving wads of stuffing and empty shredded skins in its wake—that is, in places. In others, tangles of limbs and accidental nakedness made it look as though some pornographer was staging a group scene of massive proportions, revolting and obscene. Death respected no one and nothing.

The supercharged third rail which carried the electricity had shorted out the entire power grid. Then the next two trains to enter the station had derailed and crashed because the brakes slipped on the blood and failed to stop the cars. The only thing to do under the circumstances was shut down the entire subway system, bringing half the mass transit in Gotham to a stand-still. Not that it mattered. This was the city's 9/11. In the face of this tragedy, everything else was trivial.

Emergency procedures required that any rescue workers responding to such a situation were required to wear full haz-mat gear, but emergency procedures were rarely drawn up by those who had to go down among the dead and the injured to determine which was which before there were even more dead to contend with.

Besides, there weren't enough haz-mat suits in all of Gotham City for the number of workers needed, because no one, _no one_ could do what was required down among the bodies of the young girls who had precipitated this carnage. Not for very long, at any rate.

Commissioner Gordon had been outfitted with shoe covers, latex gloves, surgical mask and goggles before he was allowed to enter the station, for his own protection. Now he stood on the mezzanine walkway and surveyed the horror below. One side of the station served as a makeshift field hospital/police station.

The other served as a makeshift temporary morgue.

The morgue side was filling up faster.

"How many?" he asked the policewoman at his side. Her name was Montoya; she was the disgraced Ramirez's replacement.

"We pulled the security cameras and made a count. There were fifty-four."

"Fifty-four. And all the eye-witnesses said they acted perfectly normally."

"Yes, sir. Right up until they stepped forward and joined hands. Even then no-one thought anything of it. No one imagined the girls were going to jump—they thought they were just playing around—practicing a cheer, or something."

"Until they leapt. And they did it with smiles on their faces."

"Yes, sir."

"What about the trains?" Gordon asked, scratching his mustache through the surgical mask.

"We don't know yet, sir. Most of them seem to have made it through with only injuries."

"Good. Whatever we can salvage from this…Were there any survivors?" he asked.

He had not said, 'among the girls who jumped', but Montoya understood that. "None, sir."

"None? Not even at the far end of the line?" His voice was thick and hoarse.

"Those who weren't killed by the impact died by electrocution. They were all holding hands, so when the—the blood came into contact with the third rail, the current went through them all."

"All fifty-four." Gordon looked down upon the wreckage once again. Even up as high as they were, the stench reached them, a miasma of nauseating scents: blood, cooked meat and burnt hair, urine and feces voided in death, and vomit. Lots of vomit. Gordon had already had to empty his stomach into a garbage can. He had not been the first, and would not be the last.

The odors were almost a visible haze in the air, and thanks to the shifting currents, the nose never had a chance to become numb to it.

Turning aside, he asked his next question. "Have there been any identifications made yet?"

Even as he spoke, a man began screaming down on the tracks below. "Emma! Emma!"

He lifted a limp and lumpy object from the mangled and shredded mess. "No oh god no not Emma my little girl get a doctor, she's not dead she can't be." he gabbled in shock and denial.

"Not officially." Montoya replied, muted.

"For God's sake!" Gordon called down, "Get him out of here! Give him a sedative and send him home—and make sure he isn't alone. I don't want anybody down there whose own daughter is missing. Nobody should have to go through that. You understand?"

His orders made clear, he turned back to Montoya. "Any ID on the bodies themselves?"

"Not many of them carried ID—it isn't a school day, and none of them were old enough for driver's licenses. Most kids that age don't carry ID regularly, anyhow."

"That age? How young were they?" At that distance, it was hard to tell.

"Most of them looked as though they were in their early teens, but there were a lot of pre-teens among them."

"Pre-teens—Babs!" Grabbing for his cell phone, Gordon called his wife. "Barbara, where's Babs? Where is she, right now?"

"Watching the Disney Channel with Jimmy. What's—?"

"Can you see her?" Another of his hunches had hit. Rachel Dawes had impressed upon him how vulnerable and fragile girl-children could be, how easily influenced by outside forces. It could be no coincidence that all fifty-four jumpers were female and very young. Someone had used them, crafting them into instruments of self-immolation.

Might there not be others? Other suicides waiting to happen, remote-controlled by a person or persons unknown? And if there were, might not his daughter, his Babs, be among them?

"If I step around the corner, I can."

"Do it. Don't take your eyes off her. Not even to go to the bathroom. Hell, don't let either of them out of your sight." Perhaps the boys were being kept in reserve. Girls were not alone in being vulnerable and easily influenced. "We have a situation we don't understand, not yet, and children are being targeted. Don't try and put on the news, it's just—Just don't."

"Why, Jim? What's wrong? Is the Joker—?"

"It's worse. Much worse." He stepped further away from Montoya. He had seen a shadow in the elevator maintenance corridor. A shadow with pointed ears. "Tell Babs she's wonderful just as she is. And that we love her. Tell her so she believes it. Okay?"

"I will, but Jim, I—."

He cut her off again. "I love you, Barbara. I love Babs too. Never forget that."

"I won't."

"I have to go now. Bye."

He closed his phone and put it away after his wife bid him goodbye, and stepped into the corridor, where Batman awaited him.

"What have you got?" rasped the Dark Knight.

"Fifty-four young girls committed suicide by jumping under the E5 train. They have nothing in common that we know of, other than age and gender—no single racial group or body type. It can't have been their own idea. Someone has to have been controlling them. Could the Joker…?"

"Doubt it. The carnage is his style, yes, but not the anonymity. He would have announced it to the world beforehand, then given us some choice to make. You don't have to tell that to the press, though. We don't need people to relax where he's concerned." Batman brooded.

"I agree."

"There's something your people haven't noticed yet." Batman went on. Lifting his hand, he shone the powerful beam of a microlight on an object hanging from a sign. A chorus of gasps went up at the shadow it cast on the station ceiling.

It was a hangman's noose.

"What—?" Gordon began, but when he had turned back, the Batman was already gone.

"Of course." The commissioner commented sourly, and went off to organize a team to get the noose down.

Once it had been retrieved, there was another puzzle. The rope was as thin as a pinky finger, and made of some multicolored fiber that was also irregular in texture. Mostly brown, it was shot with black, red, and gold.

"I think it's human hair." said one CSI tech.

Gordon looked at the rope. The individual strands were both thick and fine at the same time, and lustrous. There was only one time in life when a person's hair was so luxurious. "It is human hair." He concluded. "It's their hair. Once we've run the DNA—who wants to bet there's some hair from each and every one of those girls in this rope?"

No one was willing to take him up on it.


	28. A Surprise While Shopping

A/N: The Joker delivers a brief lecture on kitchen-sink explosives in this one. As far as I know, the information is accurate, but DO NOT TRY THESE AT HOME. I can't stress that too much. This is intended for entertainment purposes only. Experimenting with these is both dangerous and illegal.

* * *

What do I wear when I want to be invisible? A grey suit with a light blue shirt, a stylish old fedora, and a ton of my aforementioned spackle. Put that on, and I'm wallpaper, but I was _supposed_ to go unnoticed.

Grace, on the other hand, wasn't supposed to go unnoticed, but in the dark green dress she had on, she would be. Not even her signature pink shoes could save that outfit.

"Gracie, I think you're, uh, kinda missing the point. We're going out to find out if people can see you. If you wear that, we won't be able to tell because nobody's gonna look at you. Why so drab, sassy girl?"

'The police are on the lookout for a female associate of the Joker's who favors vibrant colors and eye-catching outfits.'

"Yes, and they know she wears pink shoes. If the idea is that you're going incognito, you'll have to ditch them, too."

'Uh-uh. I can't. These shoes are dangerous and I don't trust them. If they're left alone they're apt to cause trouble."

"Say what? You _imagined_ them."

'Last night I thought I was only having fun with that guy, but he died for real. I don't want to take any chances.'

"What exactly do you think your shoes, your _pink_ shoes, are going to do if you're not there?"

'Find some poor unsuspecting woman and seduce her into putting them on, then eat her feet—or else provoke friends to attack each other over who they belong to.'

"Ooookay." I drew out the word. "Grace, you're, uh, supposed to be the _sane_ one."

'That doesn't appear anywhere in writing and I never agreed to it verbally. Why should you have all the fun?'

"You're just being weird on purpose, though. It's not as if you really believe your shoes are going to go off on their own."

She folded her arms. It was amazing how well she could convey with body language alone what most people needed a dozen different facial expressions to say.

"Or _do_ you believe it? Grace, you thought them up."

'I'm not taking any chances.'

"Leaving the shoe issue aside, I refuse to go out in public with you dressed like that."

'I should refuse to go anywhere with you on general principles, and yet somehow I manage it. What, then, in your opinion, should I be wearing?'

"What about that paisley mini-dress and those go-go boots you were showing off yesterday? You're liable to cause minor traffic accidents in that getup."

'That? No. It's too "Austin Powers".'

"Groovy, baby!" I imitated.

'As if I didn't see that line coming a mile away. Okay, if you insist…'

Her clothes morphed into a tie-dyed knit top with short sleeves, in a style I'd heard referred to as a 'baby-doll', in shades of pink and olive, avocado and khaki, worn over a long sleeved pink top. With it she wore a green mini that would get any heterosexual man's attention, and the pink go-go boots. 'And yes, they are the same pair of shoes.'

"Whatever you say. Yes, that outfit is acceptable."

'Thank you, Mr. Fashion Critic.' Suddenly she gurgled with laughter, and materialized a big floppy green hat. 'Now if you combed your hair right and put on a pair of round wire-rimmed glasses, we'd look just like John Lennon and Yoko Ono!'

Yeah. Having Grace around… didn't suck.

So we went out grocery shopping, and after all that, I was the only one who could see or hear her, although I did see some people do double takes when we passed by mirrors or reflective surfaces.

'People are giving you funny looks because you're talking to yourself so much.' she commented as we exited the frozen food section.

"Do I look as though I care?"

'Can't say that you do. However, all you'd have to do is stick a Bluetooth or something in your ear and people would just think you're on the phone.' She was standing on the end of the shopping cart facing me while I pushed it around the store, just as if she were a little kid out with a parent. And why not? It wasn't as if she weighed anything.

"Why bother?" I asked. "If people could see us together like this they'd, uh, think we were a new couple or something. We'd just be too cute for words." I made gagging motions.

'Perish the thought." She retorted.

I laughed. "I wouldn't want to ruin my rep either. What's this aisle? Oh, good. Automotive supplies and cleaning products. I need antifreeze, chlorine bleach, and ammonia. Damn. Did we pass the coffee and tea aisle, or haven't we been there yet? I need powdered non-dairy creamer."

'You're going to winterize your car, do your laundry, and clean your bathroom before you relax with a cup of coffee.' she guessed. 'But why not get real milk or cream? They taste better, and that gritty chalky stuff has no relationship to any food group whatsoever.'

"You've got it all wrong." I informed her. "Y'see, a lot of people think explosives can only be made by these exotic hard-to-get chemicals when all you have to do is go to the supermarket. Antifreeze can be made into a fantastic gelatin explosive known as nitroglycol. It has a short shelf life once mixed up, but it's just as good as nitroglycerine and lots cheaper and easier to come by. Chlorine has lots of uses. It makes an okay explosive, but put it together with ammonia and you get chloramine gas. Sarin might be the new kid on the block as far as lethal gasses go, but I'd take choramine any day."

'I'm simultaneously impressed and appalled. Uh—go on. What about the powdered non-dairy creamer?'

"It's a volatile oil in solid form. Heat it up and it vaporizes. Heat it even further up, and it goes 'Boom'. Plus it's so innocuous, that's the beauty of it. Nobody is going to bust you for a jar of coffee creamer.

"Oh, what else? Aspirin plus sulphuric acid and potassium nitrate makes a phenol derivative that's a close cousin to TNT, but _so_ much more powerful, I just love it! And it only takes about three hours to whip up a batch. Highly toxic, though. Overexposure to it causes liver and kidney failure, if it doesn't kill you outright. Table salt! That's another beauty. It can—."

'Um, I am finding this fascinating—but all of a sudden this store seems deserted and I don't think it's because of anything you said—although by all rights it should have been.'

I looked around. She was right. "Well, huh!"

We found out why when we got up to the checkout. "So, uh, what's wrong?" I asked the distracted clerk while I unloaded stuff onto the conveyor belt. She was craning her neck to watch the television up at the customer service counter.

"You haven't heard?" Her eyes bulged with excitement. "The Joker got this whole girl scout group or something to become suicide bombers and they blew up Gotham Central!"

"What?"

I joined the huddle around the service counter just in time for the talking head to come on and say, "A city which has lived with ever-heightening fear since the Joker's escape from Arkham Asylum has just seen its worst nightmare come true. The costumed terrorist has reportedly slaughtered at least fifty young girls at Gotham Central Subway Station, caused the derailment and crash of two train, and shut down the entire system citywide. We go now to the scene where Commissioner Gordon is about to deliver a statement, live."

"No." I said, outraged. "This is wrong. I—this is wrong!" Several people shushed me.

Batsy's ally Gordon came out, looking about twenty years older than when I last saw him in person. Responsibility can do that to a man, which is why _I_ will keep my youthful charm and good looks forever.

"Good afternoon, Gotham City. I am speaking to you from the street above the central subway station because the station itself has been sealed off as both a crime scene and a biohazard site. Today, at 11:45 AM, the worst tragedy Gotham City has ever known took place. Fifty-four young girls, most in their early teens…" He paused. Clearly he was having trouble forcing the words out around the huge lump in his throat.

"Fifty-four young girls threw themselves off the platform in front of the E5 train as it was passing through the station. All of them were killed, and as a direct result two trains derailed and crashed, injuring many and killing some of the passengers. We do not understand the motivation behind this group suicide, but we suspect some outside agency may be responsible. It may be the Joker. It may be someone as yet unknown."

A huge uproar like the swelling of the ocean began around him. "Please! Our media liaison will be available to answer your questions shortly. At the moment, I have a serious message to deliver to every parent and every young person in Gotham.

"If you are the parent of an underage daughter, I urge you to verify her whereabouts immediately. If she is home, watch over her. If she is not, but you have contacted her, urge her to go to the nearest trusted and responsible adult at once. If you can't locate your daughter, we are setting up a hotline for you to call. Please do not come down to the Gotham Central Subway Station in person!

"If you are an underage girl, either stay home or go to a trusted and responsible adult, and place yourself in their custodianship right away. Please see this safety measure for what it is—an effort to preserve your life, not an unfair restriction. If you are having strange impulses or have thoughts about hurting yourself or others, we have another hotline for you to call and talk to a counselor. I cannot possibly stress this enough. We don't know what's going on. We don't know if this is a one-time occurrence, although we pray that it is, or the beginning of a wave of events. All we know is that we don't want to lose any more of you! Thank you. I will now turn you over to…" His final words were lost in the questions shouted out by the reporters.

"This is wrong." I repeated.

'I know.' Grace replied. 'I know you didn't have anything to do with it, because I've been with you all along. But let's get the groceries and get out of here before you start protesting your innocence in public, okay?'

I threw too much money at the clerk and took the handle of the shopping cart, shoving it along violently. "How can they say I had anything to do with that?" I fumed. "If I'd done that, they'd _know_ it. I'd have told them _what_ I was going to do and _when_ and _where_ and to _who_. I'd have left my calling card all over the place."

'I know.'

"And doing it like that—it's just wrong! You have to give them a way out, an escape route. It doesn't have to be an easy one, but it has to be there. Whoever this is _doesn't know how to play the game_."

'So you do have a rule after all.' Grace marveled.

"It isn't a rule so much as a guideline." I stormed as I rattled the cart through an uncharacteristically quiet neighborhood. Everybody was probably glued to the tube, learning all the gory details. "Otherwise it's like shooting puppies in a barrel—much too easy. You have to at least kick the barrel over and give them a running start!"

'What a horrifying metaphor.'

"I'm not going to put up with this."

'Good.'

"There isn't enough room in this town for me and somebody who would do a thing like that, and they're going to be the ones to go."

'I'm with you on that.'

"I am going to find whoever did this, expose them, and clear my name."

'You have my full support.'

"And then I'm going to teach them the error of their ways. Over several days. With a dull knife dipped in iodine, so it really hurts and so they don't get an infection and die before I want them to."

'I'd hold your coat for you while you did it, if I could.'

"That means I'll have to get the answers before Batman does, because if he gets there first, whoever it is will only wind up in my old cell in Arkham."

'I can see the logic in that, and you're probably right.'

"And you can sing all you want. You can shriek your head off, and it won't stop me."

'Haven't you been listening to me? I agree with you. I want to help!'

"What?" Grace had a knack for bringing me up short.

'I. Want. To. Help. You. Catch. This. Guy. Or girl. Or plural.'

"You mean we're on the same page with this?"

'Yes. I will aid you to the best of my ability. I will help you investigate. I will scare the life out of anyone who's guilty, if I can.'

"And you want to do this because…" I thought I was unshockable, but shocks come from all different directions.

'Because the world will be a measurably better place without someone who manipulates fifty-four girls into ending their lives, and since death doesn't seem nearly as bad as I was led to believe, I would like this person to suffer _first_.'

I stood there in the middle of a deserted Gotham street, and my heart started to swell with—well, I suppose it was happiness. "Oh, I _like _this plan. I like it a _lot_."

* * *

A/N: Did I mention that you shouldn't try this at home? Please don't.


	29. The Absentee Rate

A/N: Some innuendo from our dear Joker in this one, but it doesn't lead to anything graphic happening on the page. Just some naughty musing.

* * *

Decades of graft and corruption had left its mark on the police department, and nowhere was it more evident than in the laboratories, Gordon thought, looking up at the ceiling. Chunks of disintegrating tile threatened to come down on his head (not to mention contaminate evidence), and plastic sheeting formed makeshift funnels to channel dripping water from a leaking pipe into a giant garbage can. However, the people who staffed it were a different story. They ranged the gamut from time-servers who matched the atmosphere for seediness to people of stellar worth and dedication, and it was one of the latter he had come here to see.

Gotham City's finest CSI specialist in hairs and fibers looked up from the noose she was dissecting strand by strand. "Much of this isn't human, which makes sense, as a rope of this length would take more hair than all fifty-four girls had on their heads combined. The core is horsehair, and there seems to be both horsehair and another type of animal hair I haven't yet identified mixed in with the human hair, as filler."

"Will you be able to identify it?" Commissioner Gordon asked. He'd spent more years as a detective than he had as yet spent weeks as a commissioner, and he was still very hands-on in that department.

"Yes, once I've gone through the FBI database, or failing that, the zoo's. What's more, if you can find me the horse these hairs might have come from, I should be able to tell you if it's a genetic match, but the processing will take a few weeks. The human hair gets priority. Every single hair is going to be individually DNA tested to match against your victims' hair and those of everybody in the database. Who knows—your perp might have gotten sloppy and let one of his or her hairs fall in the mix when this was being made."

"If only we could be that lucky." Gordon said, grimly. "I have the impression we'll find only what our perp wants us to find, and nothing more."

* * *

In the Batbunker:

"Fifty-four girls from fifty-one families. Three sets of sisters." Batman stared at the computer screen as though at an enemy's face. "Evenly spread out racially and socioeconomically. They attended eighteen different schools in and around Gotham City—fifteen public schools, three private schools. The youngest was nine—she was fully two years younger than the next youngest. Five were eleven years old. Fourteen were twelve years old. Fifteen were thirteen years old, and nineteen were fourteen years old."

"If you don't mind my saying so, Master Wayne, but the inclusion of one nine year old among the others seems peculiar. She doesn't seem to belong."

"She was there with her sister." Bruce scanned one face after another as the photographs of each girl slid-showed on his screen. "The only common characteristic they had was gender and age. Some were attractive, some were plain, some overweight, one or two anorexic, some athletic, some not. Some were outgoing, some introverted. A few were on medications. Most weren't. All were of at least normal intelligence. None of them had showed any obvious signs of suicidal tendencies.

"I know _why_ the killer targeted them—he or she wanted to shock and horrify Gotham City, and to do so as publicly and defiantly as possible, to extract as much fear, chaos and grief from one single act.

"But I don't know why _these_ girls in particular were chosen. Or if…" Bruce paused.

Alfred finished the sentence for him. "Or if others have been chosen to die next."

"That's right. If there had only been one survivor, then maybe there would be something, anything to go on. But there wasn't."

An alarm tripped, and Batman punched a key to cut to an outside feed. "Someone's at our door."

The camera showed a moderately tall man in an overcoat and hat. Reaching up carefully, he removed the hat and turned to face the concealed camera in a way that proved he knew exactly where it was. Giving Bruce a slight nod of his head, Lucius Fox offered up a knowing smile.

"I'm here for two reasons." Fox explained a few minutes later. "When I offered you my resignation, you were kind enough to call it an extended leave of absence instead, should I change my mind and choose to come back. I hope that opportunity is still available."

"Always." Bruce nodded.

"Good, because I find I'm intolerably bored."

"What's the second reason?"

"Mahondra Lucille Clarke, my niece and my namesake. She was thirteen years old, my youngest sister's daughter—and the ninth girl in that line on the subway platform."

Bruce arrowed back through the photographs to find hers, saying, "I'm so sorry—."

Lucius continued as if Bruce had not spoken, reading from a script in his head. "I do not want vengeance for her death, nor for our pain and suffering. I want justice.

"At this moment, my sister is disputing with the pastor of our church—the church where Mahondra was baptized, where I was baptized, where my parents were married—over whether or not he will perform her funeral service, because she seems to have committed suicide. I do not yet know who will win. It is possible that a large enough donation would ease our good pastor's conscience to the point where he will say a few words over the closed casket in which she will have to be buried, but I refuse to write that check—or to support anyone in our family who would write it. My niece did not die a suicide. She was murdered.

"I want justice for her memory. I want her name to be as clear before men as it is before God." Before Batman could say a word, he turned and abruptly walked away.

But it was not before Bruce could see the glint of tears on his face.

* * *

"So—this noose business." I looked at Grace, who was once again stretched out next to me on the bed, sharing the laptop. We were getting awfully cozy of late. "Does that mean somebody used, what is it called, sympathetic magic?— to get them to kill themselves?"

News of the noose of human hair discovered at the scene had not been given to the press. The police like to hang on to little details to be sure they can tell the real perpetrator from the crackpots when the time comes. But I have mad hacking skills and discovered it in their files.

'And you're asking me because—?'

"You were the one who was talking about botanicas and Santeria the other day. Was it only yesterday?"

'Technically it's now the day before yesterday. Right, I did bring that up…No, I think the noose business was pure scare tactics. I think whoever is responsible would like people to think there was witchcraft involved. That way the real method goes unsuspected.' She twiddled some of her hair around a finger. All that hair…I still couldn't make out more than a flash of chin or cheek occasionally.

"Makes sense to me." I said, "If people could do wholesale voodoo like what we saw today, we'd have seen it before now." I glanced at Grace again. Being able to see her when I looked at her directly made some things easier, but on the other hand, it made something harder.

So to speak.

It's an involuntary reflex, after all.

It wasn't as if I was specifically…stirred up over Grace. Any reasonably attractive woman lounging next to me on my bed would have gotten the same, um, rise out of me. She just happened to be there.

It isn't as if she was wearing anything seductive. In fact, she was wearing flannel pajamas in a wild floral print buttoned up almost to her chin, and the infamous shoes were at the moment masquerading as a pair of pink bunny slippers, ears and all, which should have been unsexy.

If anything, it was even sexier. I mean, anyone can buy and wear thongs and pushups, and any fifty-dollar hooker can give a man a come-on, putting all the moves out there, but there's nothing sexy about a woman who's just trying to get _you_ off so she can get out while she's secretly cringing behind her smile. Somebody who's there, and comfortable where she is, and there's only a thin layer of fabric between you and the Promised Land…

My pants were getting uncomfortably tight, and either she hadn't noticed the direction my thoughts were taking or she was being unusually tactful about it. Anyhow, there was only one thing I could do about the situation, and that was go to the bathroom for a moment of privacy.

When I got back, she inquired tartly, 'All better now?'

Damn. She had noticed. "I was _trying_ to be discreet."

'It might have worked if you had turned on the faucet to cover up the sounds you were making, hentai.'

"Can we move on to something more enlightening? I thought of something. Fifty-four is an odd number," I mused, "and yes, Miss Smarty-Pants, I know it's divisible by two, which makes it an even number, so don't bother opening your mouth. Obviously I mean odd as in 'peculiar'."

'I wasn't going to say anything.' Grace claimed. 'It's terrible how easily you hacked into the Gotham Police Department files. Somebody ought to tell them their back door's unlocked. Can you click on the next page, please?'

I clicked. "I mean, why fifty-four? It seems so random, and whoever this is, isn't random. Fifty would make sense. Sixty, okay, an even five dozen. Why fifty-four and not some other number?"

'Why not forty-two?' Grace propped herself up on one elbow. 'Do you know where your towel is?'

"What obscure pop culture reference are you throwing at me this time?" I asked.

'Not that obscure! It's from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. If you don't know where your towel is at all times, you'll never be a hoopy frood.'

"Is that good or bad, not being a 'hoopy frood'?"

'Very bad.'

"That's me all over. Very bad."

'You said it, I didn't. Fifty-four might have some significance to whoever did this,' Grace speculated, 'but it makes for a sizable group. That's two homerooms worth of students.'

"Your point being?"

'Even on the first day of school, how often does everybody in even one homeroom show up on time—or at all?'

I couldn't actually remember, so I guessed. "Very, very rarely."

'Exactly. Somebody's late, somebody else is sick, another somebody never comes in until nine because she's training for the Olympics, yadda yadda yadda. Just because this person can control minds doesn't mean they can control chance.'

"Ah, now we're on my wavelength! You think there were more girls who were supposed to take the Big Jump with the rest, but they missed the boat." I extrapolated. "Which means there are survivors out there who might have vital information about who and how locked somewhere inside their darling little skulls.

"But how do we find these girls? They say the counseling hotlines are choked with calls from girls who say they've been having strange impulses and/or thoughts about hurting themselves or others. Probably ninety percent of the underage girls in the city have called in, or tried to."

Grace made a rude sound. '_That_ should have been predicted. _Every_ girl of that age has strange impulses or thoughts about hurting themselves or other people; it's called _adolescence_. You go along the first ten-twelve years of your life in a small, clean, neat, predictable body and then everything goes crazy. Everything grows out of proportion to everything else, you start growing hair in gross places, your skin erupts and _then_ you get your period. Of course you have strange impulses and think about hurting yourself and others! The wonder is that _more_ girls don't do it.'

"Uh, what _it_ are you referring to here? Suicide? Homicide? Sex? Experimenting with drugs? Inadvisable spending sprees?"

'Take your pick.'

"Okay. Given your insight into feminine nature, how would you go about finding these surviving girls?"

'On line. Where does every kid in Gotham with internet access have a webpage with a friends list, photographs, etcetera? Gothamscene. We look up all fifty-four girls, then correlate their friend lists and look for overlaps—say, if a girl appears on more than three friend lists and didn't die, we look at her page and see if she previously blogged anything suspicious—or if she's gone very, very quiet about the incident since it happened. The ones who gush about it are safe. The girls we're looking for will be scared silent.'


	30. Strange Revelations

A/N: Four great ficcers to try if you haven't all ready, in random order: **Joker88**, who writes the best creepy Joker-centric fics with a definite edge and no warm fuzzies whatsoever, and a Batman fic called Mask upon Mask about what happens when Batman is seriously injured, and Gordon discovers his secret identity. She does her research, too. Circus Act, which I hope she will continue soon, (hint, hint,) is a fully-fleshed out world of its own.

**Ruroni-Wolf**: if you like my humor you'll love her Hearts, Stars and Horseshoes and its sequel, Clovers and Blue Moons, about the earthly misadventures of Harvey Dent's guardian angel as she attempts to keep him safe. This requires fighting the Joker, of course.

**Elizabeth Tudor**, who is writing something truly rare in the world of fanfic: Complete Me, a non-graphic Joker/Batman slash story with dignity, humor, and believable interaction between the characters. Ordinarily I shun slash stories because reading other people's sexual fantasies makes me uncomfortable and bad characterization drives me off, but Elizabeth brings something to it no one else does.

**Grace Dark**, whose And The Rest Is Ancient History is undoubtedly the best young Joker story I've ever come across. Not simply a pity-fest, she paints a complex psychological profile of how Jack became who he is.

Also, I went back and tweaked the dialog between Grace and the Joker in the last chapter when I realized I'd goofed a little. It's much sharper now.

* * *

Grace: Gothamscene required that prospective users register and create a profile before they were allowed access to its pages, so he decided to come up with one. "Okay, let's say I'm a fourteen year old girl named…Danielle Joanne Kerr. Yeah, that's good."

'Hey, I made the Joe Kerr joke first! You'll need to put down which school you go to.'

"Uh-huh…Park Ridge Middle School, that's a good neighborhood. Or should I say I'm being home-schooled?"

I watched him, wondering what had happened to make him what he was. I knew he had been abused, and I was sure he had been molested at least once by an older boy who had pretended to be his friend. Then there was the scarring, which had happened when he was in his later teens at least; the younger you are when a scar occurs, the better it heals, and his scars were messy ridges, more pronounced on one side than the other.

Somewhere along the way had come the straw that broke the camel's back and made him irrevocably psychotic, fragmenting his memory and forever destroying what might have been. He had drifted for a while, until the Batman entered the picture, and then the Joker had coalesced.

But what was it, exactly, that had made him into a giggling maniac yet left him with enough humanity to value Sol and Bernice, the elderly tailor and his wife, to whose lives his patronage meant the difference between mere survival and comfort?

That friendship, unlikely as it was, was one of the things I liked best about him. Inasmuch as he could care for someone, he cared for them, one flower left blooming in a war zone torn by bombs and poisoned with hatred. He hated all the rest of the world, but he saved his deepest loathing for himself.

The human heart needs to love. It's something built into us from the moment we're born, if not before. We come out of the womb squalling and frightened, evicted from the warm darkness that's the only home we've ever known, where we needed nothing, into a cold loud bright place where we suffer hunger and thirst, and then we're placed into our mother's arms. Our mothers feed us and burp us, wipe us when we're dirty, kiss us when we cry. She's the sun and we're little seedlings; we grow toward her as the source of all that's good.

Even if she isn't all that good. Even if she didn't want children, even if she's neglectful, we love her anyway. We have no other choice. For a while, she's all we need.

Then things get complicated. Around about age two, we start realizing we're separate people and we practice saying "No!," just to prove it, and over the next several decades we just keep on growing away, but we do not lose the need to love, to touch, to be touched. The need for intimacy. Somewhere along the way, the hormones kick in, and sex only complicates the whole issue.

If we're lucky, we develop into a person who's capable of maintaining a long-term intimate relationship and having a family of our own. If we're unlucky, we wind up living with a triple-digit number of cats and no one notices we're dead until the smell gets too bad.

If we're not just unlucky, but cursed, if through mistreatment and punishment, the ability to love gets broken, the need still doesn't go away. It becomes something else. It becomes rage. And the person becomes a psychopath.

Which is a very longwinded way of getting around to why I didn't curse him out for reacting the way he did, because what he was responding to wasn't my sexiness, but the intimacy, or the perceived intimacy, of the situation.

Intimacy isn't something you can get from half an hour on a filthy mattress or in the dark corner of an alley. It can't be bought or sold or faked.

He couldn't ever had had a lot of it in his life, and stomping on his yearning for it—well, he was bad enough as it was. Anything that steered him away from becoming the sort of person who winds up raping and killing a series of people he finds attractive because he can't assuage his need for intimacy any other way—could only be good.

Because he wasn't that far from it. When he remembered those occasional sad and sordid encounters with prostitutes, he also remembered how he frightened them and hurt a few of them while playing around with his knives. He didn't hurt them badly, nothing deeper than a paper cut but that's the kind of thing that only escalates. How long would it be before he was kidnapping girls off the street and holding them prisoner?

The only reason I could be comfortable with him was because he couldn't hurt me.

I doubted he was capable of a normal relationship.

In fact, our relationship was probably the closest he could ever get to it.

That was a very sad thought.

He deserved better.

To cover up my own melancholy, I asked him a question, distracting him from the creation of his fictional likes/dislikes list. 'Where were you when you first saw the Batman and realized who you were going to become, what you were going to do?'

"That's a very good question." He looked up and grinned at me. "Nobody's, uh, ever asked me that before. Not the doctors at Arkham. Not my attorney. Not even Bats. I've been wanting to tell somebody. In fact, I've been waiting to tell somebody. Not just anybody, mind you, but someone who'd appreciate it. I think—yes, I think you will.

"It was Fear Night, and I was in the Narrows…"

Fear Night was what people called the night when Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow had let loose the inmates of Arkham upon the narrows while simultaneously vaporizing the city's water to release the fear toxin. It was also the first time Batman had truly stepped into his role as the city's self-appointed guardian.

"...seemed like it was going to be an ordinary night. I knew the Chechen's men had been out collecting, and I was going to drop by to remind them that if I didn't get my cut one way, I was ready to take it another way."

'A pound of flesh taken from the breast nearest the heart?' I asked.

"Something like that. Then the storm drains started to billow out steam. Next the manhole covers popped up out of the street like corks out of champagne bottles." He snickered. "Y'know, all over the Narrows, pipes were bursting, boiling water was shooting out of toilets at high pressure--there were people who ended up in the hospital just because they were sitting on the john at the wrong moment. They got their asses cooked like a steamed pork bun!"

'Then the visions started.' I said, but it seemed to me as though I were remembering something, something important.

"I breathed in as much of that gas as anyone," he told me, "and I could tell things weren't exactly normal, but to me it wasn't all that different. What other people were seeing, when they talked about it afterward, that the world had turned into hell, full of ugliness and demons--for once, they were seeing the world like I did. That was before, of course. Before I decided to brighten the world up with prettier colors and lights. When it was still all so grey and grindingly _dull."_

_'_What did you do?' I asked. Where had I been at the time.

In the dark, the cold wet dark, and I _hurt_...

"Grabbed up a crowbar and started in swinging. Took the streetlight out at the corner of Glazier and Woodbine. then cut over to--."

I banged on the lid and called for help, but nobody came, and it just wouldn't move...

"The cops had a barricade across Merrell, so instead I--."

Then the water warmed up. First I thought I was getting used to it, then I thought it was warming up with my body heat, but it kept getting hotter...

'Joe--Joker.' I stammered, though I had no lips nor vocal cords to stammer with. I had the memory of having them, though. 'I think I'm remembering Fear Night. Really remembering it, not just knowing what happened.'

"You okay?" he asked.

'I don't know.' ...the water got hotter, hotter than a bath, uncomfortably hot, painfully hot, and I couldn't get out, I couldn't get out, my nails scraping against the plastic, breaking as I clawed at it, and I couldn't stand up. I didn't need any fear toxin to scare me, I was fighting for my life, and the steam seared my lungs...

'I boiled to death.' I gasped out. 'He hit me over the head and put me down in the sump pump, to get me out of the way. Then he put the cover back on and walked away, leaving me in there. And I boiled to death, like a lobster in a pot.'

"Damn. Uh, No wonder you came back. If I died like that I'd be pissed off, too. Who was the guy?"

'I don't know. I don't remember his face.'

"Do you remember where you were? That might be a clue."

'No. I don't remember.'

"Anyhow, that lets me off the hook for doing you in. I know for certain I didn't clock anybody on the head on Fear Night and shove them in the tank of a sump pump. Uh--lemme check on line..." He shrank the Gothamscene site down and typed a few words in the search engine box. "'Gotham City body discovered sump pump.'" and hit enter. "No. Wherever your body is, it's still there. You haven't been found yet. You're sure you don't remember where you were?"

'I'm sure.'

"What do you think of this scenario? You're in Arkham--now don't get het up, I mean you _worked_ there, and Arkham was where everything went down. So maybe you were in the wrong place and you caught somebody like Ra's or Dr. Crane, or one of their goons doing something they really shouldn't have been doing. Rather than risk you sounding an alarm, one of them knocks you in the head and sticks you down in the pump, which happens to be directly below my future luxury suite."

'...I think you need medication.' I straightened myself up and swung my feet over the side of the bed.

One of my pink bunny slippers fell off and landed on the floor with an audible 'thunk'. When it hit the floor, it turned into a pink pump.

We both stared at it. 'If you try picking it up,' I told him, 'do it by the heel. It might bite.'


	31. Hungry Shoes

A/N: A short one this time. I promise it'll be longer next time.

* * *

"Oh, c'mon. My hand'll pass right through it—**Oww!** What the—?" I jerked my hand back to discover that something had neatly sliced across my forefinger and middle finger right at the first joint crease. "It _does_ bite!" Blood welled up in the cuts, and I stuck my fingers in my mouth.

'I told you.' Grace scolded. 'How bad is it?'

I took my fingers out of my mouth and inspected them. "Not that bad. They won't need stitches." I reached out with my other hand to touch her ankle, but she was still no more solid than air, which was disappointing. "But_ so_ freaky freaky freaky."

I reached down to pick the shoe up again, this time by the heel, and looked at it. It was as pink inside as it was on the outside, except for a sort of stylized flowering vine running up the inner sole, and it practically glowed. I can tell the difference between Payless and Manolos, but this shoe looked as though it was handmade by the kind of firm that won't grant you an appointment unless they made all your grandmother's shoes and all your mother's shoes too. There wasn't any label or any printing anywhere in it or on it, not even the size, and there wasn't a scuff or a mark on the sides or the sole. As far as I could tell, it had never been worn.

'Careful,' Grace warned me, as I took out a switchblade, opened it, and ran the blade along the shoe's opening, looking for a concealed trigger or a spring-loaded razorblade.

Nothing. I decided to try something. The cuts were already clotting up, but I squeezed them until they popped open again, and dripped two or three fat drops of blood into the shoe.

No paper towel or diaper ever absorbed liquid more thoroughly than the lining of that shoe. No stain, no moisture. Nothing. They were as clean as before. "Vampire shoes." I marveled.

'Not strictly vampire shoes. They gobble up flesh and bone, too, without so much as a burp.'

"Carnivorous shoes, then." I concluded. "Okay, this cries out for an explanation, and it had better be a good one."

Grace took a deep breath. 'There's this movie called Bunhongsin…' She went on for a while.

"So you saw them in a movie and thought they'd be cool, and now somehow they've turned out to be real—in some ways, even more real than you." I summed up. "How do you explain this?"

'Some things defy rational explanation…but there are these things called tanuki in Japanese folklore. They're either common household objects that've come to life, or they're little shape-shifting beings that like to pass themselves off as household items. They tend to be mischievous rather than flesh-eating, however.'

"Uh-huh. You could've stopped after 'Some things defy rational explanation', because these 'tanuki' fall up under that category." I didn't _always_ want a doctoral dissertation on every topic.

'So sorry to have bored you.' she shot back.

"Annoyed, not bored."

'Whatever.'

"Don't get huffy, sassy girl. I'm trying to think is all."

'Oh, is _that_ what I smell burning?'

"You know it—Here's your shoe back, Cinderella." I held it out, and she slipped her foot into it. As soon as it was on, it became intangible again, and turned back into a bunny slipper. "So you can control them when you have them on, and uh, presumably they don't or can't hurt you because you're already dead."

'I suppose—but I think they like me, and it's nice to have a couple of pets.'

That made me laugh. "Care to try a little experiment?"

'I don't think they'll fit you.'

"That's not what I have in mind, which you already knew, since you can read my mind. Could you try taking off something else?"

She paused a moment. 'Okay. I can try.' She started unbuttoning her pajama top. 'I am imagining a camisole under this, so don't get too excited.'

"Aw, shucks." That didn't stop me from watching her every move. She did have on a pink thing under it, but she wasn't wearing any bra under _that_, and the motions of taking off the top made her chest move in fascinating, seismic ways.

I put out my hand, and she gave me the pajama top, but I couldn't feel a thing and it vanished the moment she let go of it. "That answers that. Can you get it back?"

'No problem.' She shrugged, and there it was again.

"Interesting. So, uh, these shoes. They sometimes eat the wearer's feet?"

'Yes, but they thrive on conflict as much as on flesh and blood. Every woman who sees them, young or old, goes off her head with envy and possessiveness. In the movie, they pull a cop-out and try to make a human the real culprit, but by that time, we've seen the shoes in action too often to believe it.'

"Are you going to go out of your head over them?"

'I think I'm immune to that effect, too. They prey on female competitiveness and insecurity, and being dead, I'm beyond all that.'

"You couldn't tell that from all the dressing up you do."

'That's just for fun and out of boredom. Besides, however I may have looked in life, I'm sure boiling didn't make me any prettier—and now that I've had a year to rot…'

"You're thinking you look like the Nazis at the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark under all your hair." I guessed.

'Or like Norman Bates' mother, only with more mildew. I don't have to care about how I appear to others anymore. It's… very freeing. I like it.'

"I think I know what you mean. I deliberately go out of my way to look as horrible as I can, because it scares people and puts me outside all value judgments. Also, I like it."

'And that's what really matters.' she concluded.


	32. Cassia

We were just hanging around the living room area of the Boom Factory waiting for one of my lads to get back with the girl.

Part of being a successful leader lies in picking the right person for the right job. For example, if the job is a suicide bombing, then your carrier pigeon doesn't even have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, it's better if they can't, because then they won't have second thoughts. You can't have second thoughts if you don't have first thoughts.

However, when you're sending someone out to collect a thirteen-year-old girl and you don't want her damaged, you have to pick somebody who will understand what you mean when you say you will do unto them as they do unto her. I chose Lewis, who I had once seen reading The Invisible Man, apparently just because he enjoyed it. As far as my lads went, that made him an intellectual.

'Which Invisible Man was he reading?' Grace asked me.

"There's more than one?" That was news to me.

'Yes. Titles can't be copyrighted. There's H.G. Wells' Invisible Man, which is about the man who invents a formula, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which is a novel about race and racism in America. Both are classics.'

"Then I don't know which one. Lewis is black."

'Either way, it makes me wonder why he's working…in a field where the survival rate is so low. Someone who reads either for pleasure ought to be able to get a job where he's not considered expendable.'

"You were about to say 'why he's working for you', weren't you?"

'Yes, I was, to tell you the truth.'

"As far as the underworld goes, I'm a very generous and liberal employer. I hand out cash by the fistfuls and the prospects for mayhem are unlimited. What more could they want? Working for me is the opportunity of a lifetime."

'Yeah, and that's the problem. A lifetime is the length of time a life lasts, and around you that can be measured in days rather than years.'

"Sometimes in only minutes." I agreed with her. "So you want to know why Lewis has lasted so long."

Especially since you've been known to sacrifice, or, rather, execute every single person who you take along on a heist.'

"Oh, that," I waved a hand, "that was just the one time. A special occasion. I wanted to make a big splash, get everybody's attention. Those guys were just some random assholes…Why has Lewis lasted so long?" I thought about it for a moment. "He's kind of an invisible man himself. Competent, usually quiet, but he laughs at all the right moments. He's not in it for the fun of hurting people, I'd have noticed if he were…Now I'm beginning to wonder what he's doing working for me. I know he's not an informant, but what's in it for him? Oh, I can't be bothered with all this. I'll just kill him once he gets back."

'Wouldn't that interfere with your given word that you'd do unto him as he does unto Cassia?' Cassia Marks was the girl Lewis had been sent to get.

"Good point."

'And then you'd have to drive her home.'

"An even better point. Okay, he gets to live but he has to tell me what he's in this for and it had better be entertaining. Otherwise he gets knives stuck into him at random non-fatal places. Fair enough?"

'I should have known better. I was only mildly curious. If I'd known this was how you were going to react, I never would have brought it up.'

"Speak of the devil, I think I hear them now." A car door slammed, another one opened and closed.

"You do know that she isn't going to be able to tell us a thing, don't you?" I griped.

'What do you want to bet?' Grace challenged me. 'I bet she will—if you let me help with the questioning.'

"And, uh, exactly how do you think you're going to do that, since she won't even know you're there?"

'With all these mirrors in here? She'll see me.'

"Yeah, but she won't hear you."

'Then I'll just have to tell you what to ask, won't I?'

"I haven't agreed to that yet. Do you really want to, um ,bet something on this?"

'Absolutely. If I'm right—the we go out to dinner somewhere of my choosing, and I'll tell you what to order. Obviously I'll be sharing your tastebuds. Then I get to pick out some DVDs to rent.'

"Aww, no. You're going to get nothing but, uh, romantic comedies and chick flicks, aren't you? I'll tell you right now, no Meg Ryan and no Sandra Bullock."

'No, I wouldn't, and you wouldn't have to watch them, anyway.'

"I'd have to be in the room, and before you suggest headphones, where would you wear them? You're intangible."

"No rom-coms, no Meg, no Sandra. My word on it. What would you want as a penalty if I lose, which I wouldn't?'

"Uh, let me see. I know. You don't just tell me what you're wearing uner your clothes—you show me. And we get some DVDs I'd want to see. Deal?"

'Deal!'

By that time, Lewis and the girl had reached my door. "You want to step up one here. Watch it!" I heard a strangled sob. Lewis guided a blindfolded girl into the Boom Factory. She stood about five feet tall in her flip-flops, and she was wearing blue jeans with a Tinkerbelle sweatshirt. Her hands were bound with cord, and the blindfold had two dark patches where she'd been crying.

"You can untie her hands and take a powder," I commanded Lewis. "But leave her blindfold on for right now." He did so.

She didn't move a muscle. "That's a good girl." I picked up a digital video camera, turned it on, and aimed it at the girl. "He didn't hurt you, did he? I told him not to hurt you, and if he did, I will be very unhappy with him."

"N-n-no." she gulped.

"But he did scare you?"

"Yes. He-he rang the doorbell with pizza, and when I went to see what he was doing there, 'cause we didn't order any, he, he grabbed me. I thought he was going to—but now you're—."

'You're scaring her too.' Grace commented.

"Yeah," I said to Grace. "I kinda got that. Is there anyway I wouldn't, though? Given who I am and all?"

'I guess not, but having her stand in the middle of the room with her eyes covered is guaranteed to raise her terror quotient.'

"Are you still talking to me?" the girl asked.

" Um, just a sec. You can take off the blindfold now. I'm sorry he scared you, but I'll give him a good scare later, so—." Right then, she got the blindfold off and saw me, so of course she jumped backward, got tangled up in her own legs, and sat down hard on the floor.

"Y—you're the Joker!" she blurted out.

"I am?" I turned to the mirror behind me, and started with alarm. _"Oh_, my God, I am! This is _terrible_! What—how—What am I going to do?"

'Smart-ass.' Grace had the eyeroll going in her voice.

The girl looked too terrified to appreciate the little comedy routine I'd got going there, so I quieted down. "It's okay. Just my little joke. Now, you're Miss Cassia Marks. Can I call you Cassia?"

She nodded. "Wha-wha—what do you want with me?"

"I need your help. It's okay, you can get up. I don't think you, uh, be comfortable sitting next to me on the sofa here, but there's a chair over in the corner." She went and got it.

I continued. "Y'see, I know from your Gothamscene page…Gracie, would you go stand behind her, so you're in the frame? I want folks to know you're being treated okay, so I have a chaperone here for you and everything."

"But—." I watched as Cassia looked around for Grace and realized she could see her, but only in the mirrors. "Is she—what is she?"

"Right now she's your guardian angel, Cassia. Grace is a very special person, and she won't let any harm come to you—especially not from me. Isn't that right, Gracie?"

'Oh, so right.' Grace drawled.

"But why can't I see her face?"

"That's because she's an angel. Didn't anyone ever tell you that angels are so beautiful that if you saw them in their glory, you'd die on the spot?"

"No, but we're Unitarians." Cassia explained.

"Unitarians, that's good." I said, "but let's stay on topic here. I know from your Gothamscene page that you were friends with Lyndie Copley, and Hanna Bixler and Sarajane Mayle and—," I rattled off some of the names of the dead, and she burst into tears.

'Go easier on her,' Grace advised.

"Okay, okay!" I told my ghost, and to Cassia I said, "Oh, c'mon, now. Don't cry. You're a big girl, and one of the skills, that's uh, going to serve you best in life when you're grown-up is learning how to put aside your own feelings, good or bad, and faking it in front of others. Suck it up, kiddo!"

She got herself under control, using the blindfold to blot her face. "That's better. Yes, they were your friends and yes, they're dead. No! No more of that. You've probably heard my name being mentioned in connection with what happened at Gotham Central."

She nodded.

"Well, I didn't do it, and I don't like that I'm being accused of it, and I _really_ don't like that somebody else is wrecking my playground, so I want to find out who did. That's where you come in. Where were you yesterday?"

"At home, grounded."

'Ask her why.' Grace advised. 'Even if you aren't interested, act like you are. It'll put her more at ease.'

Common sense. "Grounded, huh? What did you do to get yourself grounded?"

"I ordered stuff off of Amazon on my mom's work account."

"What did you order?"

"Skin care products. Lush is the only company that makes stuff that really works and it's all completely green and natural!" She said it passionately.

"Skin care products?" I raised an eyebrow at her. "Think they'd have anything that's good for scars?" I indicated my own.

She shrank back. "I—I don't know."

"That's okay. I was just making a little joke. You don't have to laugh; it was a bad one. So you were at home grounded. Were you supposed to meet your friends some place?"

"No."

'Did you see what she did with her head?' Grace asked me. 'She said no, but she nodded very slightly. Ask her again.'

"Are you sure you weren't supposed to meet your friends?"

"No. I mean yes! I mean, no I wasn't supposed to meet them." She got flustered, but Grace was right. When she said 'No' she nodded, and when she said 'Yes', she shook her head. She probably didn't know she was doing it.

"Did you leave the house at all yesterday?" I pressed her.

"No."

"Did you try to leave?"

She didn't say anything. She just looked at her hands. 'She's trembling.' Grace informed me. 'You're hitting a rich vein.'

"Did you try to leave, but you got caught?"

Nothing.

"Cassia?"

"I don't—I didn't—Mom stopped me when I was going out the back." She mumbled. "I just wanted some air?" I wasn't sure if she was really asking a question. Teenage girls sometimes get into this habit of raising their voices at the end of every sentence as if it was a question. It's annoying and it sounds stupid.

"Uh-huh. Where did you think you were going?"

"I don't know." I barely heard it.

"So you were going out the door and you didn't know where to, and you weren't sure why." I stated.

"I guess."

"But it didn't seem strange to you?"

"No. I just wanted to go out."

"Ooo-kay. Did you call the counseling hotline to tell anybody about that?"

"No." She fidgeted with the hem of her sweatshirt. "I mean, it's not like anything happened. Or would have happened. I just wanted to go out."

"I think you know that isn't true, Cassia. Did you talk to any of your friends that morning?"

She nodded again.

"Did they say anything about just having to get out of the house?"

"Anybody would have wanted to get out of the house on Saturday." She defended herself. "I mean, what else are you going to do?"

'Ask her if they usually got together on Saturdays, and where they went.' Grace offered. 'This killer might have been going for package deals.'

"Makes sense. Did you usually get together on Saturdays?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"What places did you go, usually?"

"The Fashion Center at Kane Square." Cassia replied. "It's the coolest mall in Gotham City."

"What kinds of things do you do when you hang out there?"

"Window shop, mostly. We go through cosmetics places and try the samples, we go to the movies, stuff like that."

'That sounds very normal.' Grace commented. 'Ask her if they all had their hair cut recently, or if they donated their ponytails for a cancer society to make wigs for chemo patients.'

I passed those questions along.

"No, we couldn't afford to go to any of the hair places in Kane Square. They're expensive! Bethanne was the only one who did the hair donation thing, she has such gorgeous hair, it's to die for. I mean she had…" The waterworks were back on.

"Come on, Cassia, you were doing so well."

"I—I'm sorry."

'Ask her if they all had a check for head lice at their school—or anything else where they all had their hair done on the same day.'

"No…" Cassia replied once I had relayed the question. "Not done—not exactly. There's a modeling agency at the mall, and some weekends they have these, like, open house days where you can get glamour shots done—just digital shots, so all you have to pay for is the disc—and they have people there to get you camera ready. It hardly cost anything at all, and then they have your photos and stuff on file in case they want you for a real modeling job. They said I had great cheekbones and perfect lips." Maybe she did, but the rest of her face had angry looking pimples.

'A modeling _agency_?' Grace asked. 'Not a modeling school?'

I relayed those questions as well.

"No, it was a real agency." Cassia insisted.

'Did they require a parent or guardian's signature?'

This asking questions through me was getting old fast.

"No," Cassia answered.

'Jackpot.' Grace said.


	33. At The Modeling Agency

James Gordon had never been to the Fashion Center before; a mere detective's salary did not allow for impulsive shopping trips. With two children to provide for, Barbara looked for bargains at less exalted retail centers, and Babs was as yet too young to have caught on to the pleasures of simply 'hanging out.' So he paused in the food court for a moment to take in the soaring architecture, the seven story tall atrium, the fountains, the bright banners, and the glass elevators.

The designer had set out to build a mall that looked as little like a mall as possible, aiming instead for a sort of shopping-oriented secular cathedral, but the basic mall-ness had prevailed. The food court still smelled like a food court, with its aura of molecularized grease hanging in the air, the advertising kiosks showed posters for movies which had bombed and vanished the same weekend they opened, and the plants and trees had that plastic look of shininess and uniform coloring despite the fact that they were real. A mall was still a mall.

It was the hour before opening, when the employees are hurrying in, their friendly 'How May I Help You?' masks not yet in place, before the Muzak is turned on, and today it was also the hour in which a crime had been discovered.

The crime was a triple murder.

"And you say the crime scene is up on the top level?" he asked Detective Sergeant Bullock.

"That's right, Commish." Bullock took a slurp from his coffee, and dripped some on his tie. "The Mercier Modeling Bureau—what a name, huh? Like it was a city office! This office assistant called it in when she got there, found it was locked from the inside—and then saw a body."

"Let's take the elevator." Gordon decided, craning his neck to look all the way up to the diamond-mullioned roof, where the clear plexiglass was admitting the first weak beams of daylight.

His energy levels were low; not enough sleep, too much coffee, not enough real food. A teenage girl, Cassia Marks, had gone missing the night before, sparking an 'Amber Alert'. However, after several hours, she had turned up at a police station in the next township spouting a wild story about a midnight abduction and being questioned by the Joker—a questionable tale. Probably she had snuck out to see a boyfriend.

"Don't want to bust a blood vessel getting there. There's already enough blood around." Bullock agreed. The two men crossed the floor to the closest glass elevator, and got on.

"So what are we looking at?" Gordon asked. What neither man noticed, as their elevator carried them past each level of the mall, was the figure of a woman standing on the other side of the atrium. She was moderately tall, with long dark hair concealing her face, and she wore a filmy, sleeveless, white dress with soft pleats, reminiscent of an angel's robes, or a ballerina's skirt, or a bridal gown—or a ghost's sheets.

"Triple homicide, three for three, in a suite of rooms locked from the inside. One bludgeoned to death, one drowned—."

"Drowned?" Gordon looked at the sergeant with surprise.

If they had noticed the woman in white, they would have also noticed this: without seeming to move, she was standing at the same place on every level they passed. She was nowhere near an elevator, escalator or stairs.

But that, of course, would have been quite impossible.

"Yeah. They had this serenity fountain thing with maybe an inch of water over these pebbles in the middle of their reception area, and one of them got held face down in there till she died. All three were women, did I tell you that?"

"How did the third one die?" Gordon asked.

"She bled to death after someone cut both her feet off, clean as if they were guillotined." Bullock mangled the word as he said it, pronouncing it 'guy-lot-tined' rather than 'gee- oat-ined'. "That's what the doc wrote down. That's the mystery about it."

"Guy lot?" Gordon said, momentarily perplexed. "Oh. Right. I know what you're talking about. Can't they find the weapon?"

"Commish—they can't even find her _feet_."

Most importantly of all, they missed the fact that the janitor pushing a mop around on the fifth floor had greenish hair poking out around the baseball cap he wore, and a glob of white makeup still clingng to his right earlobe.

Each level of the mall had a different focus: the food court and movie theater were on the lowest level. The next level up had mall standards: Victoria's Secret, the Limited, the Gap. Above that were specialty stores: maternity boutiques, jewelry stores, accessories, and so on and so forth.

The seventh level was devoted to services: a luxurious day spa, the mall management offices, a Sylvan Learning Center, and of course, the Mercier Modeling Bureau. Very little expense had been spared in its decorating budget: the floors were highly polished wood, the walls papered with textured gold-and-white paper, where they were not mirrored, and the furnishings were uncompromisingly thin, unpadded, and angular.

So were the two corpses, still being examined by the crime scene investigators.

"Were they sisters?" Gordon asked, looking from one blonde corpse to the next.

"No, former models." Montoya straightened up. "Even if they do look more like famine victims than fashion victims. That's Gabrielle Mercier, manager of the Bureau, daughter of the current owner." Ms. Mercier was evidently the bludgeoning victim, as her face and head were marred by blows. The weapon, a table-top mirror mounted on a heavy ornamental stand, lay by the body.

"That's her assistant, Debra Franz-Elmyr, in the fountain. And in the next room, we have our third vic," Montoya led the way into a small auditorium with a fashion show cat-walk instead of a stage. "The techies haven't gotten to her yet."

Gordon stopped short. At the back of the catwalk, in front of a triple mirror array, lay the third corpse, its feet at the center of a pool of drying blood. He had expected to see that.

However, at the end of the catwalk, front and center, directly in the spotlights, stood a pair of shoes. Women's pumps, to be exact, with a two and a half inch heel.

They were pink.

Montoya was staring at the shoes. "She's, um, she's Meriel Dobson. She was apparently the office manager, and the real shoes of the operation."

"Shoes?" Gordon asked, his voice a dash of ice water. "How was she the real _shoes_ of the operation?"

"Shoes?" Montoya shook herself. "I don't know anything about the shoes, Commissioner. This is the first I've been in here."

"You just said that Meriel Dobson was the real 'shoes' of the operation, Detective. I think you meant to say 'brains'. Keep your mind on your work."

"Yes, sir." Montoya said, but not without casting a longing glance at the footwear on the catwalk.

"And don't go anywhere near those shoes! They could be evidence."

"Sir?" Another detective looked in at the door. "You should come see this."

Behind the receptionist's desk was an explosion of photographs, lying about on the floor like leaf-litter under a tree, several layers thick. "King here recognized some of the girls. They were—they were among the fifty-four at Central Station yesterday. Maybe they're all there, only there's a lot more than fifty-four different girls in those photographs. There _has_ to be a connection."

"Sir?" Yet another detective vying for his attention. "There's a DVD camera on the shelf here, and it—well, see for yourself."

Gordon did. Someone had drawn a leering happy face on it, with round black eyes and a wide red grin.

"The Joker." he said.

* * *

Grace: 'Hey, what do you see if I step off the railing?' I asked, as I climbed up over the barrier that prevented shoppers from taking a long walk straight down the atrium onto the tiling of the food court quite a ways down. I leapt off into the void, and hung there. 'Is it anything like The Matrix?'

"No. You look like you're swimming, more than anything else." The Joker squinted at me. "Yeah, uh, there's this underwater effect. Your hair and your skirt are sort of billowing out around you. Especially the skirt. It's doing this Marilyn Monroe thing."

'Really? Oh.' I looked down. 'Why, so it is.' I pushed it down around my legs. I could almost swear I _felt_ it…

"Hey, you don't have to cover up on my account." He was leaning on the railing with his elbows, watching me.

'Oh, _I_ think I _do_. Am I sinking?' My perspective was changing; he was rising out of sight above me.

"Very slowly. Hey, how long are we going to wait around for your shoes?"

'Until they either come back or I'm convinced they're not going to.' I made swimming motions with my hands, kicking up at the same time, and popped up back at eyelevel with the Joker.

"Fair enough. _There_ you are." He clapped his hands together once, and pointed at me. "Do you get what that means? You're slightly heavier than air now, at least when you're not thinking about it. One of these days, you might just be solid."

'Maybe.' Neither of us asked: what happens then? I knew he was thinking about it, that he wanted to reach over and feel warm flesh—or something that could pass for it—instead of thin air. _That_ was no secret. But what would I want if that time ever came?

He went on, "I don't know why you think your face is going to be decomposed, because the _rest_ of you doesn't suggest that you're rotting."

'If I prepare myself for the worst, than I can only be pleasantly surprised…Could you step either to the right or the left, so I can get back up? Or I could go right through you.'

"Sure." He moved aside, and with only the slightest concentration, I floated up and through the rail to stand on the fifth level again.

A prickling at the back of my mind distracted me. 'Oh—I think somebody left a door open long enough.' A moment later, I had my pink shoes on again. 'There you are. Feeling full, I hope?'

"They don't answer you, do they?" The Joker looked down at my feet.

'No.'

"That's good. When my delusion starts having delusions of her own, that's when I'll know to get worried. Can we go now?"

'Who's stopping you?'

* * *

A/N: I know you're all wondering what was on the DVD and exactly what did her shoes do? Next chapter will answer those questions.


	34. Guilty As Sin

A/N: Longest. Chapter. Ever. Whew!

* * *

Given who had left the camera there, Gordon called in the bomb squad. It was anticlimactic to discover that the camera was nothing more than a camera.

There was nothing anticlimactic about what was on it. The film began with a close up of the Joker's face, jerky and uneven, and the sound of his manic giggling. "Hell-o, Commissioner Gordon, and a great big Mm-wah!" he mimed a kiss, "to Batsy. Since you found this message, you'll, uh, you'll recognize where I recorded it."

The image wheeled as he turned the camera around to pan around the gold-and-white reception area of Mercier's, uncluttered as yet with corpses. "What is this all about, you're wondering. Well, as you know, yesterday afternoon fifty-four schoolgirls did the Big Jump off the platform in front of the E5, and my name is being attached to that. I don't like that. I don't like it at all.

"I am not responsible—believe me, if I were, you'd know. You have my word that I'm not. I am a falsely accused man and since I know too much about the Gotham Police to believe you could find your collective ass with both hands—no offence to you, Batsy. You're not the police, but I got here before you did, so I know I'm three steps ahead of you."

The picture blurred and refocused on his face, which wore an exaggeratedly quizzical expression. "Now how can that be?" He wagggled his head. Well, uh, you assume that just because none of the fifty-four who jumped lived to tell, there weren't any survivors. But, let me give credit where credit is due--." the camera moved again, "which in this case is my lovely assistant Grace." Now the camera focused on a slim woman in a long white dress, her face hidden by her long black hair. "Say 'Hello' to the nice Commissioner and his friends, Gracie."

"Hello to the nice Commissioner and his friends, Gracie." repeated the woman, cool irony coloring her voice.

"_Very_ good. Gracie here pointed out how difficult it is to get any number of kids to all show up on time for anything under any circumstances. Kids today! Can't even be bothered to show up to their own suicides!"

He turned the camera around to face himself once again, and smirked. "Sooooo, I'm not gonna tell you how, cause Macy's doesn't tell Gimbel's, I found a girl who should have been number fifty-five, Cassia Marks, and we asked her a few questions about where and how somebody could've got hold of hair from all her little friends. Oh. Yeah, I know about the noose of human hair. You have some lousy internet security down at the Gotham PD. More holes than a junkie's underpants. Who pocketed the money for upgrades on your system? Somebody must have.

"Anyway, Cassia told me about how Mercier's Modeling has these open houses every other weekend where they let the teenagers come in and glamorise them for the camera--without charging them hardly anything. In fact, since Mercier's has a professional photographer come in, it must be like throwing money down the toilet. Care to comment, sassy girl?"

Once again the dark-haired woman filled the screen. The Joker's nervous, jumpy movements made her seem to flicker insubstantially, a wraith in mist. Her cool ironic voice said, "Modeling is to girls what lottery tickets are to retirees on a fixed income; the hope of getting everything you want for little or no effort, only the odds are worse. Winning the lottery doesn't depend on having less than five percent body fat. Honestly, there are six billion people in the world right now, half of them women, and maybe a third of those are of an age to be models. Of those who are, there are _maybe_ ten who can say they won't get out of bed for less than 25,000 a day, but every girl believes she could be one of them."

"I, uh, thought the saying was less than _10,000_." the Joker deadpanned.

"Inflation." Grace shrugged. "The point is that on the hope of becoming a model, not only those fifty-four girls, but hundreds of others here in Gotham City did what they should _never_ do. They gave out their names, addresses, email, phone numbers, and a great deal of other personal information, including photographs and hair samples, to total strangers."

"Take a look at this" The Joker pointed the camera at Grace's feet. Under her pink-shod toes was a flurry of photographs. "That's what was in the Mercier files under 'Prospects'. Every single girl who leapt off the train platform and nearly a thousand others. Of course, you might say it's mere coincidence, but let's get real. Somebody _paid_ Mercier's to set these girls up. You'll find lots and lots about their parts in this in the computers, just like I did.

"How they got the girls to commit suicide, well, that I dunno yet, but I betcha I do by this time next week--Ah! I think the staff are coming in for the day. Let's get some candid shots, shall we?"

"Oh, god." came a languid, bored voice from the vestibule. "Time for another day of fluffing up the little idiots. Debra, can you get that for me? Wait a second--Aaah!" The video switched off.

When it came back on, the jiggly picture showed the three murder victims backed against the wall. "All right, ladies." the Joker said. "Let me repeat for the record what I told you before. I give you my word that I won't hurt you. You can even call the cops at any time--see, I got my cell phone right here. It's your choice. You can answer my questions about the deaths of those fifty-four girls at Gotham Central, or you can answer to the police and all those grieving families. You could try to make a break for it, but you'd have to get past Gracie, and while I gotta say _I'm_ worse than she is, she's got a serious mad at you for selling these girls out to... whoever you sold them to."

"What's to stop you from going to the police--or sending them that recording?" asked Meriel Dobson, a thirty-something woman with tawny-brown hair and an athletic build.

"Let's just think about that statement for a moment, okay. Me Jo-ker." he said, Tarzan-like. "Police no like. Me no good them. C'mon. If I drop a dime--no, with inflation, fifty cents--on you, who are they going to believe? And I'll leave this camera and recording here when I go as a souvenier. I might even have another present or two for you, if I like what you have to say."

"But what about her?" Gabrielle Mercier jerked a thumb towards someone off screen.

"Gracie? Gracie couldn't call the police even if she wanted to, could you, Grace?"

"Sadly, no." came the cool irony.

The three women looked at each other. "Can we have a moment to talk?"

"Su-re." the Joker said. "Take two."

The three women conferred. Finally, Gabrielle Mericer turned to face the camera and said, "Last year, we were in a financial crisis and faced bankruptcy. A man I was seeing then, his name is Allan Porter, offered to subsidize us in exchange for our help with a human phenome project he was working on. He told us what he wanted--photographs and information about as many young people as we could get, and hair samples. He made it sound like a scientific study of the gene pool."

"And, uh, how much was he subsidizing you for?" the Joker asked.

"Ten thousand per unique sample." That was Meriel Dobson. "He had us use disposable combs, then tag and bag them after a single use."

"Ten thousand dollars. That's not bad. Ten thousand to set somebody up for a hit, that's nice money for a fingerman. Sorry, fingerwoman. Finger_women_."

"We didn't know what he was going to use them for!" Debra Franz-Elmyr protested. "You've got to believe us!"

"Do I? Do I really?" The camera spun wildly around and around the three women, bouncing, as if the Joker were skipping along. "Cause I, uh, dumped out your bags--and nice bags they were, too. Fendi, Prada, Coach--and then there were Chanel lipsticks, all kinds of makeup and perfume, and drugs. Plenty of prescriptions in there--and Ms. Mercier there had a cute little bottle of cocaine. Oh, but you're not addicted. How deeply did you question why he'd pay so much? Why he didn't care about release forms or parental permission? Did you ever think he might be a pedophile or something?"

"Of course not!" That was Meriel Dobson. "I met him. He just wasn't the type!"

"Just wasn't the type. Just wasn't the type. D'ya wanna know how I got these scars? Huh?" The picture settled as he put it down on the reception desk. The Joker walked into the frame. "I was about seven, I think, and my family, we went to the carnival. While we were there, this man comes up and abducts me. Carries me out to his van right under the noses of everybody. The way he got me away from my parents was, he was wearing a clown costume and a mask, see? So they thought it was all part of the fun and games.

"The moment he was out of sight, he ditched the costume and the mask, and under it, he was dressed just like any of the other dads there. I'm kicking and screaming, yelling 'No! Help! He's not my dad!', and he's saying things like 'Just you wait until your mother hears about this!' So people thought I was just a cranky kid acting up.

"He takes me to his house, which is way out in the middle of nowhere. I'm crying by that time. I tell him 'I want my mom, and my dad's gonna beat you up.'

"He tells me, 'I'm your dad now. You're filthy. Get out of those clothes. I'm going to give you a bath.' When I said no, he hit me. Over and over. Until I finally did as I was told.

"So he ran the bath, and he took his clothes off too. I'm only seven or so, remember. At that age, they tell you not to go with strangers but they don't tell you why. I get in the tub, and he starts washing me…But before too long, he's in the tub too, and he's using the soap on himself. That was the first time he raped me.

"For the next eight or nine years—they all blurred together, after a while—I belonged to him. He raped me and sodomized me and used me in every way you can imagine and some you couldn't possibly imagine. For months he locked me in an extra-large dog crate whenever he left the house. Then we moved, and he had a room where he kept me locked up. Pretty bad, huh? But you see, although he was a pervert and a pedophile, he was also a man, and a lot of men like variety in bed.

"So he had friends, men like himself. And they had 'sons'—some of them actually were their sons—it was a whole community. So they'd get together for sleepover parties and camping trips, where they'd swap us around. There were even doctors among them." He laughed mirthlessly. "After all, they needed somebody to sew up rectal tears when 'Daddy' got overexcited—and after one of those parties, I'd wind up on soft foods and sleeping on my face for weeks."

"The worst of it was—there was a lot of worst, but I think the absolute worst was, at these parties, sometimes there weren't enough beds to go around. So we boys sometimes had to share. I wound up with Alan once, he was a bit older than I was Alan—was nice to me. He shared his candy with me, and he listened to me talk about how much I hated what was going on. How I hated my life. How I couldn't even remember my name or my mother's face or the color of my father's eyes. He held me while I cried. And then he took my pants down, and he raped me too.

"Now do you wonder why I turned out the way I did?

"But all good things must come to an end. Eventually I got too old to interest 'Daddy' any more. I was too old, too tall, I'd grown body hair. I was no fun to play with anymore. One day, he brings home another boy. A kid about the age I was when he kidnapped me. He tells me to go to my room. The kid's looking at me, too scared to whimper. And I go. By that time, 'Daddy' thought he had me whipped. We'd moved a dozen times, changed our names every time. I was even enrolled in school. I didn't even bother trying to tell.

"Then I hear him running the bathwater. And I get my pocketknife.

"The door broke down with one kick, that was how thin it was. I go in swinging, and I cut him across the chest. He slips and falls on the kid, but he's up again right away. Did I mention he was still half again as big as me? He was. He gets my hand, and he squeezes until I drop the knife. He picked it up—and he did this."

"I was choking and spitting my own blood, and he was pounding my head against the wall before he remembered the kid. You know what happened when he fell on the poor little schmuck? He knocked him out or broke his neck or his skull or something. While he was beating the shit out of me, that kid _died_.

"I'd never seen 'Daddy' that mad before. Ever. So he hauled me down to the basement closet and locked me in there while he goes to dump the body.

"And he never came back. I got out eventually, called the cops, told them my story. By that time, they'd already found the kid's body. So I wound up in foster care while they tried to find my folks. And they did try. But I couldn't remember my name, or where I was from. I don't know how many families with missing sons came to have a look at me, or how often my DNA got checked against theirs. It was never a match. Did my parents give up? Did they die? I don't know. I'm never going to know. My point is, my 'Daddy' didn't look the type who would be a pedophile either. You can't tell by looking."

The three women looked at him in shock.

"Now, no more protests, because you had to know he was up to something shady--or else you're the three stupidest bitches who ever lived. I don't much care which. Gabby, I want you to give me the contact information for Allan Porter. And I want it now." the Joker demanded.

"All right." Gabrielle Mercier's voice quavered. "It's--."

The video turned off again--the Joker evidently wanted that information kept a secret. When the picture returned, the Joker was saying, "Well, that's enough. I'm satisfied. What about you, Gracie?"

"I'm good with it." she agreed. "Don't you have a lovely parting gift for these contestants, Bob?"

"Something in pink, perhaps?"

"Exactly."

"Ha. Ah-hah-hah. Ho-ho. Oh, yes." He bent down, out of frame, and when he straightened up, he had the pink shoes in his hand. "There's only the one pair, so you'll have to decide who deserves these the most. How about if I leave you to sort it all out? Come along, Gracie." Setting the shoes down on the desk a few feet away from the camera, he bowed himself out, and the girl in white followed him.

"Don't, uh, forget to lock the door behind me, now!" he called back as he left.

There was a moment's silence. "Is he gone? Is he really gone?" gasped Debra Franz-Elmyr.

Meriel Dobson hurried to the door. "Yes, he is. I've locked it."

"What are we going to do?" asked Franz-Elmyr. "We can't call the police. What if he tells, though? What do we say? Gabby?"

The manager of the Bureau had her hands pressed to her temples. "He won't tell. He always keeps his word, that's all he's got. What a lunatic—I don't believe a word of that ghastly story. Nor do I believe we're responsible for those girls' suicides. He made up that story about the hair, he had to have…As for this trash—." She reached for the shoes.

"Actually, they're quite unique. No brand labels, I wonder who they're by?" She paused, picking up the pumps. "Brand new, too, and beautifully made. I think they might even be my size."

"If they're your size, then they're my size too." said Franz-Elmyr, drawing nearer. "My feet are a little narrower than yours. Let me try them first."

"Rank has its privileges, Deb." She bent over. A moment later, she said, "Oh. Oh, my. These are like…chocolate cake for the feet!" She crossed the room. "I've never owned a pair of heels this comfortable. My _gym shoes_ aren't even this comfortable. Damn, these are even better than sex."

"I've got to try them for myself. Please, Gabby." begged her assistant, coming up on her side..

"My feet aren't that much smaller than either of yours." The office manager put in.

"Back off, you two." ordered Mercier, posing in front of the mirrors on the wall. "Ummm. Yummy. They definitely flatter my legs, don't you think? They say pink is the enemy of chic, but there's always something to be said for bucking the—."

At that moment, both assistant and office manager attacked her, one from each side. The three of them went down on the floor, assailing one another with an intensity that was frightening.

The sight of women fighting one another was often greeted with derision, mock-yowls and cries of "Cat-fight!" Some people even found it erotic, as if all that close contact and heavy breathing might suddenly change into sex at any moment.

There was nothing like that in this struggle, which was brief and ended when Debra Franz-Elmyr seized the heavy mirror from the desk and bashed in her employer's skull with it.

"You always were a greedy bitch. I _hated _having to pretend to be your friend. Picking up your dry-cleaning, running to get your coffee. Telling you I loved your new hairdo." she informed Gabrielle Mercier, prying at the pink shoes until they came off. "You're mine now. Mine." She crooned to the shoes, stroking them. "What, Meriel?" she asked in astonishment.

Meriel Dobson lunged at her. Debra Franz-Elmyr was stick thin and bony with it; Meriel Dobson was more muscular, more physically fit. The two struggled, Franz-Elmyr clawing and kicking, but hampered by her refusal to drop the precious shoes. Dobson stunned her by a kick to the solar plexus, then dragged her a few feet until they reached the fountain. Then Dobson pushed Debra Franz-Elmyr's face into the water and held her there. Franz-Elmyr thrashed, but she had no way to gain leverage, and slowly, her thrashing stopped. She quivered, and was still.

"Greedy bitches, the both of you. So superior." Meriel Dobson spat, leaving go of Franz-Elmyr's head. "Rubbing it in that I'd never been a model, I didn't know what it was like. Never thought I knew about that porn movie you did, did you, Gabrielle? And you, Deb. Gold-digging kleptomaniac. I'm glad you're dead, you hear? Glad. This place would have gone under years ago if it weren't for me." Taking possession of the pink shoes, she scrambled to her feet and left the frame.

A minute passed in silence.

Then Meriel Dobson screamed.


	35. Characters

A/N: Lewis, by the way, belongs to DC as well. I borrowed him from Harley Quinn.

* * *

"When we get back to the Boom Factory," I thought out loud, "I'm going to look up all the recent suicides in Gotham. No way was Central Station a dry run. They have to have tested it out first, probably more than once." For our transport home, I selected a car from among those parked in the mall garage and hotwired it. Now we were driving down Fleet Avenue, which on a Sunday morning was fairly quiet.

'How do you know?' Grace asked, 'and by the way, do you always drive with your head out the window like a dog? I'm just asking. It's not a criticism. I find it kind of cute.'

_Kind of cute?_ I pulled my head back in and glared at her. "I _like_ the feel of the wind in my hair."

'What about the taste of the bugs in your teeth?'

"I like them too. They're crunchy. To answer your first question, I know they tested it out because just as most people have a sense of humor, I have a sense of evil."

'That I can believe without hesitation. So, what's the motivation behind this? How does this person benefit by having fifty-four girls commit suicide? Are they, like you, all about chaos and disorder?'

"No. This isn't about chaos and disorder. Whoever did this is a control freak."

'As opposed to an out-of-control freak? Not that that applies to anybody in this immediate vicinity…' Her voice was light and teasing.

"Or their shoes." I shot back.

'Touché.' she acknowledged. 'Okay, yes, a control freak, I can see that. He or she controls people to death, but what's the point? Of all the things they could control people into doing, like having sex or buying a certain brand of fabric softener or voting for a particular candidate, why have them commit suicide?'

"They're saying they control the future, Gotham's future, and they can kill it. Any. Time. They. Like. That whole mess at the subway station, that was only the first incident. There'll be others. These suicides are a message to Gotham in general and Batman in particular."

'Him again! Is he the only game in town?'

"He's the biggest target. Look, doing what he's doing is like…climbing the tallest tree in the forest during a raging thunderstorm while wearing a copper hat and talking trash about the Virgin Mary. He's asking for it, whether he knows it or not."

'You never finished telling me about the first time you saw him and how you realized what your destiny was going to be.' she pointed out.

"As I recall, that was because you started freaking out after remembering your death, and then your shoes distracted us. Anyhow, we're here, and if I'm not mistaken, that's Lewis waiting down on the dock there—and I have a few questions I'd like to ask him." I pulled in by the curb and stopped the car.

'Should I disappear?' she asked.

"Why would you do that? You only just started being visible to other people, and I kinda want to show you off."

'You want to show me off? A girl who literally isn't altogether there and whose face can't be seen?'

"Well, your figure can be seen. Anyhow, since that little video we shot is gonna end up on the evening news, or at least excerpts of it, everybody in Gotham City is going to know you're connected to me. If my lads never see so much as a strand of that gorgeous hair of yours, they'll start snooping around to see where I've stashed you, and I can't have that."

'They're going to think I'm your girlfriend, aren't they?'

"Probably."

'I wish you could tell them I'm your bodyguard instead.'

That made me laugh. "Uh-huh. _You_—as _my_ bodyguard."

'Why not? They'd just assume I had amazing martial arts skills like in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or that I was a psychotic bloodthirsty Gogo Yubari clone.'

"Ah-hah. The little schoolgirl assassin with the spiked ball on a chain from Kill Bill!" This time I got her reference straight off. "And you'd look cute in that school uniform, too, but the pink shoes would get you some major demerits. Sorry, sassy girl, but that bird won't fly." We were still sitting in the car while Lewis walked over, looking as though he wondered what was up.

'Do you want it to be common knowledge that I'm…differently real?'

Differently real as in dead. "No, I think that your uniqueness should, uh, be our little secret."

'Then you're going to have to do the gentlemanly thing and get my car door for me.'

"Dang. I keep forgetting you can't do stuff like that." I pop the locks open with the handy driver's side controls and step out to hand her out of the car like she was a princess. I left the doors open—easiest way to get rid of a car I don't want around. In fifteen minutes, someone else would have stolen it.

Lewis stopped about fifteen feet away and gives us a casual nod. "Hey." If my life were a movie, they'd cast Chris Rock as Lewis. But I'd get all the best lines.

"Lewis! I heard on the news how little Cassia got home all safe and sound. Well done. Let's take this conversation in off the street, why don't we? Oh, and this is Grace. She doesn't shake hands. Grace, Lewis."

'Hello.' Grace said.

"Hey." Lewis repeated.

"So inarticulate of you, Lewis." I commented as I unlocked the door. "Especially for a man who reads what you do. What was it I saw you reading once? The Invisible Man? Which one was it, the one by Wells or the one by Ellison?" I let both of them by me, and I locked the door behind us.

"Ellison," Lewis replied. "Hey!" This time he said it because I grabbed his wrist and bent it behind him, pinning his face against the wall.

"Again with the 'Hey'." I complained. "Didn't we already have this discussion? I'm willing to drop it if you'll be just a little more forthcoming. Don't try to talk now." I warned him, tickling his neck with a knife. "Wait until I ask you a question. You not only can read, and that alone makes you stand out among my lads, but you read Ralph Ellison for pleasure. You're smart, Lewis. Smart enough to have survived the better part of a year working for me. Too smart to work for me unless you have some other motive for being here. What is it, huh? You can tell me."

"I—I needed the money for college!"

"Oh, Lewis. That's an excuse every stripper offers up to explain why she's exposing herself while spinning upside down on a pole. Haven't you ever heard of scholarships or student loans? Try again."

"I have a girl and we got a kid. I needed the money for them."

"Better. You got a picture of them?"

"On my phone!" He wrestled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I pressed buttons until I saw a pretty but sad-looking young woman holding a smiling baby boy who did indeed look like Lewis.

"All right. Girlfriends and children can be expensive. Yet somehow your story seems, uh, incomplete." I decided. "Why risk your life working for me when your long-term prospects are sooo poor?"

"Because—because—."

"Make it good!" I pressed the point of my knife under his left eye.

"I'm writing a book about you!" Lewis gasped, finally, just before I broke the skin.

I eased up. "Writing a book about me?"

"Yeah. I always wanted to be a writer, but what have I got that hasn't been done? Another angry young black man from the hood? A dime a dozen. Editors throw my stuff out fast as I sent it in. But a book about my life as one of the Joker's henchmen, that's something else. I already got a deal."

"Uh, I have to say I don't like that very much. It draws on events that are rather too recent for my taste, Lewis. I don't necessarily want people to know where the bodies are buried, catch my drift?"

"Not the way I got it set up. I—I know sooner or later—you'll kill me. Or the cops will. The book goes to my publisher _after_ I'm dead, and the money goes into a trust for my son."

"So the longer you stay alive, the longer it is until you see print, is that it?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why a trust for your son? Don't you trust your girl?"

"It isn't my girl I don't trust. It's her mama. Been in and out of rehab since she was only nineteen. That's why even with all of what you pay me, they still don't have money. I give it to her, but as long as she got money, her mama knows how to get it out of her."

"Hmmm." I thought about it for a moment. "A book about me. And the longer you live, the longer the book'll be, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, Lewis." I stepped back and let him go, putting the knife away. "I'll let you live, and you can go on writing your book, but on two conditions. One, that you not make up any shit about me. Put in whatever you want, but make sure it's the truth. And two, you use this title. Every Comedian Needs A Straight Man: Life as the Joker's Henchman."

* * *

A/N: Here's something funny. I was on Rottentomatoes, the movie review site, the other day, and just for fun I looked at their Halloween costume suggestions. One of them was for Nurse Joker, which had me tickled pink, but another was for one of the inspirations behind Grace. This was their suggestion:

Character: Kayako

Movie: Ju-On: The Grudge, Ju-On: The Grudge 2

What you'll need:

Baby powder

Eyeliner

Ratty, solid color dress

**At least you'll repel all the drunken frat guys in Joker costumes. (Though we can't help that the two might make for a cute couple.)**

First, liberally sprinkle baby powder all over yourself. We suggest filling the tub and jumping in for a quick swim. Next, apply heavy eyeliner so that your peepers really jump out from your newly pigmented skin. (Ladies, keep your hair wet and bedraggled; the stringier, the better.) Once at the party, find a good corner or nook underneath the stairs to stare and hiss at people. But do try to show up in the background of every picture taken, slightly out of focus.

Classic line: "Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk" (death rattle)

So somebody else out there also thought the Joker and a Asian ghost-girl would make a good match—either that or I have a secret reader at Rottentomatoes!


	36. The Mayor

The Mayor was not happy with anybody, least of all Commissioner James Gordon. "What the hell are you doing traipsing across the city from crime scene to crime scene? Don't you have a sense of priority?" Mayor Garcia had eyelashes so thick and dark any woman would envy them, but right now his eyes were burning so intensely that those lashes should have been singed off. He faced Gordon across the expanse of his desk, glowering.

"I'm the detective with the most practical experience in all of Gotham City, and I'm doing my job. That is my priority!" Gordon replied. After a split second, he added, "Sir."

"Wrong. You were the most experienced detective. Now you're the Commissioner of Police. There's a bigger picture to consider, and in that picture, you let your subordinates take care of all the penny-ante stuff or you'll never get anything done."

"Penny-ante stuff like the scene at Gotham Central Subway Station yesterday? Should I have let my subordinates handle that?" Gordon knew he was dealing from a position of strength, as various local and national pundits had commented favorably on his handling of the situation and his leadership capabilities.

"No. I mean the triple slaying at—what was it? Mercier Modeling Bureau. Do you mean to tell me they couldn't have handled that without you?"

"The two cases are tied together." Gordon took a grim satisfaction in the expression on the Mayor's face. "We now have the names of nearly a thousand other at-risk girls—not to mention the fact that the Joker was responsible for those three killings."

"Then he was responsible for the Gotham Central tragedy?" Garcia seized on that.

"No. God help us, he's conducting his own investigation into the matter—and he's not taking any prisoners. We recovered a recording left at the scene. I brought a copy. You'd better have a look at it." Gordon crossed the office and put the disc in the office media center's DVD player.

The two men watched the events unfold onscreen. When it was finished, the mayor shook his head in disbelief. "They killed each other—over a pair of shoes? What happened to the third woman?"

"We're not sure. She was found dead in an adjoining room, her feet severed at the ankles. We don't have a murder weapon, a suspect, or the victim's feet. At this time, our best guess is that the Joker had a confederate hidden somewhere on the premises. He or she attacked and killed the third vic, Meriel Dobson, bundled up the weapon and the severed feet, then concealed themselves again until the police arrived, then made their way out in the commotion."

The mayor stared at his new-minted commissioner with disgust. "And you're admitting to that kind of laxity in your department?"

"The alternative, sir, is believing that those shoes ate Meriel Dobson's feet and then left the premises on their own—and I refuse to entertain that possibility for even a second."

Silence reigned for a moment in the Mayor's office. "That creature in the fright wig, that 'Grace'—she's been seen with the Joker on at least three occasions now. Are you any closer to tracking her down?" The topic of the shoes was to be dropped, apparently.

"No, sir. Real or fake, that hair conceals her identity to the point where we have no reliable identifications. However, we know this about her: she isn't Caucasian. Our belief is that she is either Asian or Hispanic."

"How do you know that?"

"The images are poor, but we noticed the difference in skin tone between 'Grace' and the three victims. They were white, and on the recording their skin looks mauve. Grace's skin has a greenish tone. We had several female detectives put on a sleeveless white top and then filmed them with the same camera under the same lighting conditions. Montoya and Thien were the closest matches."

"Well, keep that piece of information to yourself for now. The last thing we need is for racial tensions to be stirred up on top of everything else. What about this Allan Porter? Have you located him?"

"No, sir—or rather, we've located twenty-three of him so far. There are over ten million people in Gotham City, and neither Allan nor Porter are uncommon names. We're still trying to determine which, if any of them, is the right one."

"Keep looking," Mayor Garcia ordered. "Almost a thousand more at-risk girls--I'm canceling school tomorrow. It's too risky."

"I can't agree. If school is cancelled, where are these girls going to be? At home, alone. Most of their mothers work. Who'll be supervising them? If they're in school, then we know where they are." Gordon was a father, and knew something about parenting

"School will be cancelled tomorrow." Garcia wasn't about to budge, but he was a bachelor and had no clue.

"How long will it stay cancelled?" Gordon asked.

"Until I say so!" Garcia snapped back. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes. " Gordon steeled himself for what he was about to say. "I'm voiding the outstanding warrants for murder against Batman."

"What? Why?"

"Because Batman is not a murderer. Harvey Dent was responsible for those three deaths, and he will be charged accordingly."

"Harvey Dent is on an iron lung at the moment." Garcia retorted. "You're just going to throw him to the wolves?"

"We need Batman, sir. The Joker is too much for us to take on. If this were a game of chess, the Joker'd be a grand master—while we're just a winning high school chess club. He thinks several moves ahead of us and he's ruthless. What's more, I intend to deputize Batman."

"You're going beyond what I can swallow, Gordon."

"There's a statute dating back to 1837 which allows the Chief Magistrate, the role equivalent to mine, to deputize any able-bodied citizen to assist when the rule of law has collapsed and the public peace is in jeopardy. And nowhere does it say that the Mayor has to be consulted."

* * *

A/N: Bad week. Very bad week with a weird twitchy little boss. More updates soon.


	37. I Smell Disaster

'I smell disaster.' Grace predicted gloomily.

"_Really_?" I replied mentally, as we were en route to Allan Porter's place and she was riding shotgun, so to speak, in my head, the only place she couldn't be seen by mirror, camera or the naked eye. Three of my lads occupied the other seats in the car, armed to the teeth and ready for fun. "_I smell…sauerkraut, ancient baked beans, and somebody's filthy socks_."

'Same difference. Are these guys going to have your back if something bad goes down?'

I looked at the three of them. I hadn't bothered learning their names yet; why waste brain space on trivia until you know they're going to be around for a while? The driver was wearing the 'Weepy Clown' mask, and he was describing, with animation, all the details of the last torture-porn movie he'd seen. His vocabulary was limited to about a hundred words, but to make up for it he employed a particular word, the one which began with 'F' and ended with 'K', as noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, often all in the same sentence.

'Droopy Clown' had the front passenger seat, and he was squirming with discomfort because he had a sword strapped crosswise to his back like some kind of samurai or something. Taking it off either hadn't occurred to him or he rejected it for the sake of cool. 'Lazy Clown' shared the backseat with me, and he was listening raptly to 'Weepy', interjecting enthusiastically now and then.

"_True, if brains were gunpowder they couldn't blow their collective nose, but they don't have to. Allan Porter isn't our Mr. X. The prime mover behind this little scheme will be hidden behind a few more pawns, believe me. Porter's just a middleman, and I'm going to lean on him to cough up the name of the guys above him. Weepy, Droopy, and Lazy are only along because I don't want him getting any funny ideas about standing up to me."_

'Maybe, but if Droopy there actually draws that sword I bet he'll cut his own ear off.'

The image makes me chuckle. "_You're probably right_."

My thoughts about Grace swung wildly from friendly to furious and back again, sometimes in mere seconds. Leaving the issue of involuntary reactions to an attractive woman aside, it was kind of nice to have company— but on the other hand, the lack of privacy sucked, because I was never alone anymore. Our verbal sparring was fun, but who the hell did she think she was? I didn't _want_ her to like me. I didn't _need_ her to like me. If she was flesh and blood, I would have killed her half-a-dozen times by now, for getting on my nerves. Either that or we wouldn't have left the bedroom except for brief visits to the bathroom or kitchen.

I wanted to scream at her, shake her until her teeth rattled, smack her until the blood flew, _hurt_ her.

I wanted to reach over to her as she lay out next to me on the bed, have her roll over and pull my face down to hers, to wind my hands in her hair as our mouths moved together.

Then I would strangle her with it--maybe. Or maybe not.

Did I mention that I was conflicted about her?

Looking on the bright side, what we did that morning in the modeling offices was, I thought, a step in the right direction. If somebody will countenance killing for a good reason, it won't be long before they're killing for a bad reason.

Or any reason.

Or no reason.

'I wouldn't count on that.' she warned me. She could read my every thought, of course.

"_Oh, I would never take you for granted_," I laid the butter on thick. "_I'm not gonna take the bet about the ear, because I agree, but what about that bet we made earlier, about little Cassia and her usefulness? Where do you want to go for dinner_?"

'I thought you were just joking.'

"_What, you think I wouldn't have been after you for a look at your naughties if I'd won? I lost, fair and square, so you get to say where we eat and what, plus videos for afterward_." I always keep my word—and besides, I wanted to encourage her to play again. And again, and again…

'Don't ever think I'm not on to you. The Flower of Bangkok, that's where I want to go. Best Thai food in Gotham City.'

"_Where is it?"_

'In the Little Tokyo-Chinatown area, of course.'

"_Never been there. Uh, you're not going to make me order raw fish, are you? Because I'm not going to eat it_."

I heard her mental chuckle. 'No raw fish, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to…wait, I'm already dead.' Remembering her death was something else that seemed to loosen her up a lot to the possibilities offered by mayhem and chaos. 'Only American palate-friendly stuff. Yummy shrimp in coconut milk with basil and lime juice. _Cooked_ shrimp.'

"_Shrimp? You know what shrimp are? Giant water bugs, that's what. I_—." But I never finished that thought, because Weepy turned around and said, "Boss? We're here."

_Here_ was a luxurious townhouse in the Palisades, an end unit made more private with artful landscaping which blended in with a wooded area. That was good; fewer neighbors to hear the noise. I piled out of the car and reached for the sawed-off shotgun. "_Grace, be a love and pop in to see if anybody's home, wouldya?_"

'If I must.'

"_**Good**__ girl_."

I could tell my goons couldn't see her, as they didn't react when a girl with pink shoes in a dress as green as a ripe pear and hair like a storm cloud floated up the walk past them and in through a closed and locked door. She returned in a moment. 'One woman and one man, but I doubt he's Porter. He looks like a personal trainer.'

"_What's she look like_?"

'Expensive but serious. They're doing some kind of martial arts workout.'

"_Sounds like fun. Let's join in_." I took out the lock with one blast of the shotgun. "Honey, I'm home!" I hollered. "Looocy, you gotta lotta 'splaining to do!"

I was looking right into the living room, which had one of those two-story high ceilings and not a whole lot else, because what little furniture there was had been moved against the walls to give the two combatants room to move. They'd been going at it with long staffs, Robin Hood style, but of course when I entered with my usual flair, they'd frozen in place.

Grace was right; the man did look more like an instructor than the owner of a joint like this. Bald and fifty-something, he looked as though he'd been carved out of beef jerky, all lumpy muscle and bulging veins. He wore only a pair of cropped trousers and a thin film of sweat.

The girl, on the other hand, was at least thirty years younger and _very_ easy on the eyes. Brown hair and eyes, an obscenely full mouth, and a torso like a Victoria's Secret model, and I could see that for myself because she was wearing only one garment more than he was, a bra-top, which was trying hard to keep her contained but failing.

"Oh, _my_." I breathed, impressed. "_My_ my _my_ my **_my_**." If she were Porter's girl/wife/whatever, she was a distinct improvement over the late Gabrielle Mercier of Mercier Modeling. "_Who _are _you_, Gorgeous?"

My voice jolted her out of immobility. " My name is Talia. You." The girl spun the staff around in front of her, taking up a defensive pose. "You are that Jester person, are you not? What do you want?" Damn, her voice was just as sexy as the rest of her, husky and foreign-accented.

"I'm the Joker, not the Jester, and I'm looking for your boyfriend."

"What business can you have with my beloved? Get you gone, vile fool!"

"Who the hell writes your dialog? You sound like you escaped from the set of a sword-and-sandal movie. Anyhow, I'm, uh, not leaving until I get the answers I want."

"And if we compel your exit by force?" she asked, tensing up.

"You're sure welcome to try." I snapped my fingers at my lads, who had followed me in and were gawking at the goods on display. "Get them." I nodded at Talia and her instructor.

She spoke a few words in a language I didn't even recognize much less understand, and her instructor assumed a fighting stance beside her.

'Oh, no!' Grace moaned, and the fun began.

Scenes like these are better watched on a movie screen than described on a page. I mean, by the time I write that 'Droopy' drew his sword, cutting a chunk out of his earlobe in the process, and charged the instructor, who ducked, swung his staff, cutting 'Droopy's legs out from under him, 'Lazy' had already fired three shots at Talia. She had dodged them by twisting in mid-air like an Olympic diver and pulled a hidden blade out of her staff.

Her blade dragged through the air at not much less than the speed of sound, slicing across 'Weepy's throat, which sprayed a fine rain of arterial blood over all of us.

While that was going on, the instructor took 'Droopy' out with a powerful twist to the neck and headed for me, revealing his own blade as he lunged.

I scooped up 'Droopy's sword and went into street brawler mode. I never had jack in the way of weapons training. I just picked it up as I went along, and I'd gotten good at it just by managing to stay alive. What is a sword, anyway, except a big knife? You stick them with the pointy end and slice them with the sharp part.

Even so, I might not have managed to take him out were it not for Grace. She saved my ass by popping out of nowhere and scaring the shit out of him. I swear, he went grey at the sight of her, gabbling something, and I took advantage of his distraction. He died well, without cowardice.

In the end, Talia and I faced one another in that bloodied room, its pale carpet turned into a Jackson Pollock painting by spilled blood. I had 'Droopy's sword.

She had her own sword, and she held it to 'Lazy's neck. "Cease, monster, else your ally falls."

"Fine by me." I drew my gun, aimed and fired. 'Lazy' sagged in her arms. She stared at him, her lovely face flecked with his blood and brain tissue. "Now, Gorgeous, let's talk about your boyfriend."


	38. Talia

A/N: My twitchy little boss was extra twitchy this week, just my luck. But here is the next chapter!

For those who don't know (and for those who guessed her identity), Talia is the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul-Ducard, Bruce's mentor/adversary in Batman Begins. In the comic books, she is a kick-ass international assassin for the League of Shadows with fantastic martial arts skills. And she really does call Bruce "Beloved" every chance she gets.

* * *

'**You shot your own man?!**'

If I had lungs, I would have shouted at the top of them. As it was, my mental voice was 'loud' enough to make the Joker blink, shake his head, and mutter, "Oww. Don't do that, Gracie, it hurts."

'Serves you right. You shot your own man.' I fumed as the shocked Talia let the dead Lazy slip to the floor. 'Although I don't know why I'm surprised. You're capable of anything.' Three dead clowns, one dead swords-master…this place was a mess.

"Thank you."

'That _wasn't_ a compliment.'

Talia had recovered enough to take a business-like grip on her katana and proclaim, "You are a creature without honor and your death shall be that of a mad dog. You deserve no better." She started circling around, stepping over a dead clown as she did so.

"Hey! Let's not, uh, get personal here. I have plenty of honor. I always keep my word. Always. I just never promised him I wouldn't kill him. Now let's talk about your boyfriend."

"Beast! I would rather die than betray my beloved!" She sprang at him, and the battle was joined. If 'battle' wasn't too dignified a word for what was going on—the most humiliating duel in the history of swordplay. Humiliating because Talia was so obviously better--but he was so obviously more dangerous.

I suppose when you've spent all your life studying Agrippa and Capo Ferro and Bonetti, then you come to expect your opponent to know his Thibault and his Sainct. (I was remembering the duel between Inigo Montoya and Wesley/ the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride) When your foe's education has been in the School of Hard Knocks with postgraduate work at Arkham Asylum— it has to be disconcerting.

But did he have to carry on like he was all three musketeers rolled into one? Bouncing off the walls, all that thrust and parry and 'En garde'--he even said "En Garde!", and giggled.

'Joker—do you have act like this? Because quite frankly it's embarrassing for me to have to watch.'

"Hey, if she has to keep on talking like that Eowyn chick from the Lord of the Ring movies, then I get to do my shtick."

'Okay, but I think that's how she normally talks. You're just being goofy.'

"Oh, come on. Who talks like that?" he panted. He was jumpig around a lot more than he had to, and it was wearing him out. "Anyhow, being goofy is who I am. Uh, any chance of a little help here?"

'No. No chance.' I told him blithely. 'I hope she kicks your butt big time. It would serve you right.'

"You might get your wish." She blocked his blade and feinted high, then cut low, slicing through his trousers and scoring a thin red line on his thigh. It started weeping blood. He returned a cut to her upper arm.

'Mutual death by a thousand cuts. I wish I had a book. This could take all day. Don't worry. I won't let her actually kill you--just teach you a lesson or two first.'

He'd actually done rather well against the swordsman, not because he had any particular skills himself, but (as far as I could tell) because he was…the Joker, an unpredictable grinning lunatic who whooped with laughter at every swing of the sword, his or his opponent's. That made him much more dangerous than a skilled adversary, because who knew what he would do next or if he would get lucky and perforate his foe somewhere important?

I only stepped in at the end when he was about to get skewered like a piece of chicken satay, popping up in between them and scaring the swordsman to death—or whatever it was about me that killed people when they saw my face. He was dead before the Joker's sword pierced his heart.

This fight was going a lot like that fight had--the Joker had the advantage in the beginning, but as she adapted her moves, learning where his weaknesses were--and he had plenty of weaknesses--gradually she began to get the upper hand.

"Gracie?" he asked as Talia's blade shredded his ascot, missing his throat by a hair.

'What? I'm enjoying this a lot, by the way.'

"I'm not. Not anymore. It was fun at first, but now I'm getting bored. Do you think you could do something about it?"

'You want me to tell you jokes or something? I'm _sure_ she's not going to let you out of this duel on account of boredom.'

"No. What I had in mind was--Can't you sic your shoes on her?"

'They're not attack dogs! She's trying to carve you into collops. Under the circumstances, I doubt she'll drop that katana to try on a pair of shoes. Even _these_ shoes.'

"Then what do you suggest?" He jumped back to avoid a slash that would have put an end to any hopes of fatherhood on his part. "Hey, isn't a below-the-belt move a foul?"

"Your show of madness shall wring no mercy from me, toad!" Talia spat. "If the voices in your head plague you, I've a certain cure for them. Hold still but a moment, and I'll quiet them for you." She spun the katana around, aiming for his head.

He parried it, but she'd opened a cut on his forehead, which started bleeding into his eyes. "A little help here, Gracie!"

'All right, all right' I manifested, saying 'Time-out!' while making the "T" sign with my hands.

That made Talia gasp and whirl, attacking me, the new threat—and driving her blade so deep into the solid wood of the door behind me that she couldn't get it back out right away.

'Now that's just rude.' I scolded her, looking at the katana which now stuck out of my midsection. 'If I weren't dead already you might have killed me.'

Taking advantage of her distraction, the Joker had come up behind her, dropping the sword in favor of two of his wickedest knives.

"Okay, Tall--ee--ya," he drawled. "You're worse than annoying: you're boring and you have no sense of humor. The only reason I haven't killed you already is that I still want to have that little talk about your boyfriend. And if you still aren't willing to open up, I'm, uh, I'm gonna slice your tongue out and take it with me as a souvenir, get it? Cause plastic surgery might be able to fix your face if I just gave you a smile like mine, but I've never heard of rebuilding a tongue."

She was sweating profusely, her chest heaving as she tried to watch both of us at once. "Jo-gyal pritay," she whispered. "Gudu."

"Say what?" the Joker asked.

'I think that was something about me.' I frowned. 'Evil hungry ghost? I'm sure "pritay" means a hungry ghost, but I don't know the exact language she's speaking. Asia's huge and lots of its languages share the same roots. Look, if you think _I'm_ bad, then you should definitely avoid Gotham Central Subway Station, because I think those fifty-four dead girls would like to pick a bone with you over why you're defending a man who helped kill them.'

"What?" Talia cried out, astonished.

"This beloved of yours." The Joker took over. "We traced him here. He was the collector."

"But—but Bruce would never—he's—." She sputtered

'Bruce? Bruce is your "Beloved"s name?' I asked. 'Not Allan? Allan Porter?'

"No. His name is Bruce Wayne, and I will not have his name defiled by your mouth, pritay!"

"Hey, no calling my sassy girl names here. I don't like it. That's my job." The Joker grimaced, an expression which took little effort on his part, given the scars. "I know who Bruce Wayne is. I crashed one of his parties once. Rich guy. Really, really rich. He can't be Allan Porter, he's too well known. A woman like Gabrielle Mercier can smell money and fame like a shark smelling blood in the water. How long have you been living here, Talia?"

"Three months and four days. I did not buy it. I am leasing it from a corporation."

"Oh. Well, then I'd like to offer an apology. Right house, wrong occupant. This was a case of mistaken identity. Sorry." He said it sardonically. "Oops! My bad."

"A _mistake_!" Talia's nostrils should have been spouting steam. "A mistake? Four dead, chief among them Master Gotebei, and all because you made a _mistake_? Would that my father were here, gutter filth. He would cook your testicles before your eyes and make you eat them!"

"With garlic butter, I hope." The Joker dented the skin over her jugular with the knife in his right hand. "I'm partial to, uh, garlic butter. Yes, it was a mistake, but you were the one who wanted to fight rather than answer a few simple questions. This was your fault. And you know something? Once a fellow gets to know you, you aren't half as hot as you first come off. I wouldn't do you with another guy's dick.

"However, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to leave you alive to deal with four dead bodies in your living room, two of whom you killed with your own pretty little sword here, because I think that's a pretty good joke on you. Before me and my pretty pritay here—did you catch that one, Gracie?"

'Ha-ha.' I said, dutifully.

"That's my girl—before we leave, I have just one more question, maybe two. Did Mr. Allan Porter leave anything behind—or a forwarding address?"

As it turned out, he had. Among the detritus left by other former tenants, there was a flash drive which belonged to him. The Joker left Talia handcuffed to her bathtub, mad enough to fry an egg on her head, but not seriously harmed, and we left.


	39. Thai Food

A/N: I am so far behind on replying to my reviews that there is no hope of catching up. I appreciate every single one of them, though. This chapter is a little Grace and Joker fun before things get messy again.

* * *

"Are you _sure_ this is where you wanna eat?" I asked Grace. A quick trip back to the Boom Factory to clean up, change into my invisibly boring suit and slap on the spackle, and I was ready to go out and live up to my end of the bet. At least I had been until I got to the place she wanted to eat, and discovered it was a hole in the wall.

'Yes. They have the best Thai food in Gotham. Why?' She was once again inside my head, that being the only way she could both hide and share the sensory experience of eating. (I could think of a number of other sensory experiences she might like to share, but so far she had showed no interest.)

"Because the tablecloths are blue vinyl, the only waiter in the joint has a huge mole on his cheek with hairs sprouting out of it that are long enough to braid, and there's only one person dining at a time when a restaurant ought to be mobbed, that's why."

'Aren't we being Mr. Finicky tonight?' she sassed me.

"Wrong. You've gotten me confused with him. I'm Mr. Doesn't-Like-Rat-Turds-In-His-Rice."

'There won't be any rat turds in the rice, and you missed the fact that the phone is ringing off the hook and three people have picked up their dinners just in the time we've been talking. Most of The Flower of Bangkok's business is takeout and delivery. If you want ambience, you can go to Fit to be Thai'ed, which has a cool underwater theme, but you'll pay four times as much for overcooked vegetables and underseasoned curries. Just give it a try, okay?'

"Okay." I pushed the door open and went in. It looked like what it was: the former living room of a converted row home. The waiter with the hairy mole came over immediately, greeted me, and indicated I could have my choice of tables. I took one that was out of range of the window, as drive-by shootings were not completely unknown in this area of Gotham and I didn't really want to show off my lovely face, spackled or not, to passers-by. Giving me a menu, the waiter bustled off.

I opened it, and I didn't see a dish I recognized. Not even fried rice. Before I opened my mouth to complain, Gracie jumped in. 'Relax. Close the menu, and I'll tell you what to order. Get number three—and seven—number twenty-five. Oooh--and forty-one. You'll love number forty-one.'

"_That sounds like a lot of food_." I said mentally.

'Two appetizers and two main courses. That's just right for two people.'

"_But, uh, I think I have to point out that while two people are sharing this feast, only one of us is here in the flesh_."

'Then you take the rest home in a doggie bag. What's the big deal?'

"_It's twice as many flavors to try and choke down, that's what_."

'Look, will you try trusting me? I know what I'm doing.'

"_So __**you**__ say_."

'And get Thai iced coffee, too, while you're at it.'

When the waiter returned, I ordered what she told me to. While we waited, she suddenly said, 'I didn't say anything at the time, but isn't it strange that of all the people who could have rented Porter's townhouse, it should turn out to be a woman who has a personal martial-arts trainer and major edged weaponry on hand?'

"_Strange how_?"

'Right. You couldn't find your way back to normal even if you had a map and a compass, so how would you know?'

"_And you think__** you**__ could find your way back to normal, dead girl?" I scoffed. "With your pair of carnivorous shoes and the looks that kill_?"

'At least _I'd_ recognize normal if I stumbled over it.' she retorted. 'There are thousands and thousands and thousands of women out there in Gotham City who've never even picked up a sword, yet somehow we barge in on 'Xena, the Warrior Princess' while she's doing warm-ups in her living room. That, my friend, is not normal. Not by a long shot.'

"_You think she's involved_?"

'I think she bears investigating. She said she leased that place from a corporation. Maybe _it's_ behind the suicides, and she's—I don't know, a stockholder or something? I don't see her as an active part of that plot. It would be dishonorable, killing someone weaker than she was who couldn't fight back, and she takes her honor seriously.'

"_I see your point. Huh. If that's the case, if she is tied into all this, I'll bet that our little party never gets reported to the cops_."

'Of course it'll be reported. Even if _she_ doesn't call it in, somebody else will. Besides, with not just four bodies lying around her living room, but cleaning the carpet, repainting the walls, replacing the drapes and new upholstery for the furniture—that's an awful lot to try and cover up.'

"_You want to bet on that?"_ I countered. "_I say she'll have the resources to make them disappear permanently and redecorate that place from the ground up_."

'Okay. Why not? Sure. I'll bet.'

"_I say—uh, I need to think of how to word this, so there won't be any, uh, ambiguity—that those bodies won't be found at Talia's place or in any way that there's a direct connection to her. The police might be able to trace them eventually. If I win, I get that good long look at you in nothing but your undies and your hair, and if you win, you get…another night out?_"

'No—this time I want a life.'

"_I'm not following you here_."

'If I win, you either spare the life of someone you would kill, or kill someone I want dead. I think the former is more likely, but I want to cover the bases.'

"_Okay, it's a deal. However, this bet needs a time limit, say—twenty-four hours. If she reports it within one day, you win. If she doesn't, I do_."

'How about a week instead?'

"_Forty-eight hours_."

'Five days.'

We agreed on seventy-two hours. "_By then they'll be stinking to high heaven, anyhow_."

'One thing she said does have me worried, though. If I am a preta…'

"_I thought she called you a pritay. It means a hungry ghost, right_?"

'They pronounce it 'pritay' in her dialect, whatever that is. It's a Buddhist term, in Sanskrit. In Japanese it's 'gaki'. It means a spirit that can't reincarnate because it still hungers for something of the material life it just left.'

"_Like vengeance_." I nodded.

'Or anything they didn't get, or didn't get enough of. Food. Love. Money. Sex. That first folio of Shakespeare they coveted all their lives. They're insatiable. The problem is, even if the preta gets what it wanted, it can't enjoy it, because that's its punishment—think of Tantalus, dying of hunger and thirst in the Underworld, with ripe fruit above his head that moves away when he reaches for it. So they often possess people so they can compel them to satisfy the preta's desires.'

"_And you think that's what's happening here_?"

'Could be.'

"_You say that preta are insatiable? Because if what you're after is sex, I'm up for it. An insatiable woman, who-hoo!"_ I smacked my lips.

'Hentai,' she told me. 'Listen, if you ever found a _truly_ insatiable woman, you'd be left feeling inadequate and humiliated. Just hope for somebody who you can keep pace with. My point is that it's considered bad for one's physical, mental, and spiritual health to possessed by a preta. I figure I couldn't possibly affect your mental health for the worse. Your spiritual health is your own business, but I don't want to make you sick or kill you by consuming you.'

"_You're worried that you're going to hurt me_?"

'Yes.'

"_Okay. Since you've popped into my head and my life, you've been bossing me into eating healthy and taking better care of myself. You're good company, you make me laugh, and you make Batsy hopping mad. You've also saved my life several times and I think I'm more…grounded or something, more coherent with you around. And __**you're**__ worried that __**you're**__ going to hurt __**me**__?"_

Then the food started arriving, and we were both distracted, which was just as well. There was a dish with chicken and peanut sauce, some kind of ground meat in another sauce, fish with coconut milk, and shrimp in white pepper garlic sauce with those skinny peapods you eat whole. The shrimp was number forty-one, and she was right. I did love it. She did too, judging by the sounds she was making.

If I could have gotten away with it, I would have picked up the plate and licked up all the juices, but instead I spooned extra rice into what was left of the sauce and ate it that way. I couldn't pronounce the names of anything except the ground meat dish, which was 'larb', but it was all good and somehow there wasn't anything left over, not even any vegetables. I even loved the iced coffee, which was strong and sweetened with condensed milk.

The bill, when it came, didn't quite come to twenty dollars, and I was full. I left a fifty on the table and took a copy of their take-out menu.

"Now about these movies—." Since I was outside, I decided speaking aloud couldn't hurt.

'You're not backing out, are you?' she asked. 'Come on, you enjoyed dinner, didn't you? Trust me!'

"I'm not backing out!" I protested. "I'm not wild about renting, that's all. When you rent, they want all these things like credit cards and ID. When you buy, all you have to do is slap down the cash and let your legs take you out the door. After you watch it, I'll just throw it in a box somewhere in the Factory."

'But the money…?'

"I have over thirty million stashed in places in and around Gotham and another thirty million in undisclosed but secure locations outside it. I kept the loot from the first heist. It was just my half of the mob money I burned."

'Along with Lau,' she observed.

"He was a squealer, and not even good at it. Squealers get what they get."

"Sir! Sir!" It was the waiter from The Flower of Bangkok, running after me down the street. "You forgot your change." He was waving thirty dollars in his hand.

"No, I didn't. I enjoyed the meal, so, uh,—you go ahead, you keep it. Share it with the cook." I tried to press it on him, but he just would not take all of it. Finally I took back the twenty and left him with the ten.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you very much." He finally went back to the restaurant.

"What was that about?" I wondered, looking after him.

'Maybe he's simply an honest man.'

"More like him, and he'll destroy my belief in the worthlessness of human life. Present company excepted. So let's get back to some area of Gotham where I can read the shop signs, and we'll get the movies and go home."

'You see, that was the other reason I wanted to go to this district. The videos I want aren't going to be on the shelf in the average store—although maybe a big one like Borders would have them.'

"What am I in for_ now_?"

'Hush up. Go to the end of the block, cross the street and turn right.'

Our destination turned out to be Tiger Cinema Video 'the best of the East in the West.' I stopped short when I saw a poster in the window for a movie called Evil Twin. It had two girls, one wearing what had to be a traditional costume in red and black. Her hair was pulled back from her face, and she looked like a good, dutiful daughter. The other…was wearing a long white dress and she had long dark hair covering most of her face.

"Gracie, Gracie, Gracie. You never told me you were a movie star!"

'Well, I don't want people to make a fuss over me. I just want to be treated like everyone else,' she said with all the modesty of, say, Paris Hilton. 'I got the idea of imitating ghosts like these because—well, because I can't see my face because of my hair and because they're so scary. At least I thought that was why I did it…but maybe I tapped into a deeper truth than I knew. Let's go in.'

We did. It was another converted row home, only in this one the whole first floor was taken up by the DVDs and videos, both for sale and for rent. Rather than being arranged by genre, as in most video places, this one was arranged by language—Chinese, subdivided into Mandarin and Cantonese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, and so forth. "What am I looking for?" I asked.

'Let's start with Korean. I figure you ought to see Bunhongsin for yourself—and then there's at least one other film I want to get in that section.'

I looked at some of the other horror films while I hunted for the movie about the shoes. Quite a few of them had girls who looked like Grace on the boxes. "These stickers, here, the homemade ones, what do they mean? I see 'HKS' and 'NES' on at least half of them." I asked.

'"NES" means "No English Subtitles", and "HKS" means "Hong Kong Subtitles". Do you want the long explanation or the short explanation about Hong Kong subtitles?'

"Start with the short, and I'll tell you if I want the long."

'The short explanation is "Don't bother."'

"And the long one?"

'The English translations range from so-so to unintelligible, because they're an afterthought, written by someone for whom English is a second or third language. Like I said earlier, there are a lot of different languages in Asia. Almost everybody in the urban areas learns some English, though, so when a Chinese girl from Beijing goes shopping in the Harajuku district of Tokyo, she and the salesclerk have that as their common tongue.'

"Huh. I never knew that…So do _you_ watch these with subtitles or not?"

'I don't know. I guess we'll find out. Don't worry—all three films I want will have great subtitles. There! There's Bunhongsin. Third shelf down, second on the right.'

"This says The Red Shoes. Your shoes are pink."

'Red sounded more dramatic in the title. Now look for The Host. It's in Horror, too.'

"So what is that?"

'Imagine if the original Godzilla was an intelligent movie with character development and good CGI—and didn't have Raymond Burr's lugubrious voiceover.'

"A horrible monster terrorizing an unsuspecting population?"

'Kind of like you, only with more legs." she agreed.

"I'm up for it. I wish I'd known what you had in mind. This could, uh, actually be cool. What's next?"

'The Japanese section, and a film called Uzumaki. It's the most bizarre film I know.'

"What's it about?" I asked, making my way over there.

'There's this town that's haunted—.'

"Don't tell me—let me guess. Uh, by a ghost-girl with long stringy black hair whose face can't be seen?"

'No, by a geometric configuration, the spiral. Spirals are everywhere in this town. The entire population becomes obsessed by them. In the more severe cases, some of them turn into giant snails.'

"That sounds unusual." While hunting in that section, I found the movie about the slit-mouthed woman who runs around asking people if she's beautiful. In fact, I found two movies about the Kuchisake-Onna, one of which had a bleached-out face and bloody scissors on the cover, and the other of which had…the Kuchisake-Onna being a lot more friendly. Without clothing. "Um, Gracie? Which one did you have in mind?"

'Oh. Oh! There have been several versions of the same story, like Dracula, you know? That one's the soft porn version…'

"Only _soft_-porn? Boring." I put it back and found Uzumaki. "Is three enough?"

'Three's plenty.'

"Then let's go home."

Little did we know that as we made our way back to the Boom Factory, the second wave of suicides was occurring all over Gotham…


	40. The Pudding Incident

After all we went through to get it, it was a let-down to find out that the only thing on Allan Porter's flash drive was a link to a website. The website was also a let-down—or so it seemed at first. All it was, was a page of dots. Light blue dots, pink dots, bright blue dots, red dots. There were more pink dots than any other color, or at least there were when we went out to eat. When we got back, there were a whole lot more red dots and quite a few more bright blue dots. However, I was eager to get the film fest going before the Joker could change his mind, so I didn't stop to ponder their significance. Neither did he…

* * *

Trish's stomach growled _again_. Capping her highlighter, the student nurse slammed her textbook shut and declared dramatically. "I can't take it anymore. I've got to eat something."

Her co-worker and study partner Melinda raised her head. "Unless you want Ensure, tapioca pudding or graham crackers, you're out of luck." The two of them worked nights at the Holyrood Assisted Living Facility, on the tenth floor. Currently they were studying in the nurses' station while the residents slumbered.

"That's not food, that's ulcer medication." Trish grumbled. "I want something I have to chew. Something salty. Something spicy. I want lamb tandoori. The Indian place on the corner should still be open." She sprang up, pulling her sweater on over her nurse's uniform. "I'm going for it. You want anything?"

"Umm." Mel thought. "Chicken vindaloo, and onion kulcha—no, how about some vegetable samosas? You want the cash upfront?"

"We'll settle when I get back." Putting on her coat, she wrapped a scarf around her neck, and left.

The Holyrood Facility housed residents who were more or less healthy, but needed help with aspects of life, such as Alzheimer's patients and stroke victims. To prevent a confused person from leaving in the middle of the night to go home to the apartment where he lived with his parents when he was seven, not realizing that was seventy years ago and a continent away, there was always a security guard on duty at the elevators, which required a key to operate.

Tonight it was George, a student like Mel and Trish. In a few years he would be a good-looking man, but now he was still unformed, thin and awkward. "Hi, Trish. Going home?"

"I wish." She scoffed. "I'm here till morning, but if I don't get something to eat, I won't live to see the dawn." Playfully, she raised the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to stagger with hunger.

George laughed. "You should have been an actress. One elevator, hot and fresh, coming right up!"

"I'll have ketchup with it, thanks." she teased as she got on.

George went back to his books, barely noticing the sound of the elevator growing fainter as it descended. He didn't like working at Holyrood; the pay was bad, and being around all the old people creeped him out. Not because they were dying, but because so many of them had already lost themselves, lost their memories, their personalities. Death was one thing, but the slow fade bothered him. And it was so quiet at night. The lights flickered more then, he was sure of it, and Holyrood was too cheap to replace the transformers. That was also why they hired so many students.

Closing his own book, he went over to the nurses' station. He could see the elevator area from the counter, and he wanted human company. "Hi, Mel."

"Hey." She'd turned on the TV. The late-night news was on, showing footage of the Joker at the scene of the modeling agency murders. "Freak," she said to the set.

"They say Arkham pays three times what anybody else does." George commented. "but then you'd have to work around guys like him."

"He should have gotten the lethal injection." Mel stated. "Not that I usually support the death penalty, but he's too dangerous to let live." The lights flickered and came back on.

"You know what I heard about him when he was in Arkham?" George repressed a snicker. "The thing about the chocolate pudding and the turkey baster? Man, that guy is_ sick_!"

"No." Mel glanced at him.

"Okay. I gotta warn you, this is the sickest thing I ever heard of, so brace yourself. When he first got there, he was so quiet that they relaxed security on him after a while. Even gave him some work details, helping out in the kitchen. So he plays along for a few weeks. Then one day he's scheduled for a physical, so he decides to play a practical joke on the doctor. He gets hold of a big can of pudding, chocolate pudding, plus a turkey baster, and when nobody's looking he fills the baster and puts a pint or two of pudding…where the sun don't shine, if you get my drift."

"Yeah, but _whose_ sun?" Mel asked.

"That's the sick part: _his own_. So a few minutes later, he's in with the doc and a couple of nurses, in his birthday suit. They say he's scarred up like you wouldn't believe, too. The doctor tells him to bend over and grab his ankles for the rectal exam, snapping on the latex and getting out the little pointed flashlight. He sticks his fingers in—."

"They couldn't pay me enough to do that to him." Mel said.

"Me neither. The doctor stuck his fingers in, and says, 'Geez, what the hell is _this_?'

"And the Joker…" George's mouth couldn't help but twist; it was sick but funny both. "The Joker says, 'I don't know,' reaches back around for a sample, sticks his finger in his mouth, and says, 'Tastes like chocolate pudding to me!'"

"That's disgusting!" Mel said, gagging and laughing at the same time. "That _can't_ be true!"

"I don't know if it is or isn't—I'm just telling you that's what I heard. The doctor and both nurses lost their lunches all over the floor, and the Joker just giggled. After that, they won't let him out of his cell without a straightjacket."

"Can you blame them?" Mel asked. "If he'd do a thing like that to _himself_, what would he do to other people?"

Then the lights went out. "Not again!" Mel wailed.

"Hang on a sec, I've got a flashlight at the guard post." George said. The red emergency lights were on, and the elevators were on the same circuit. It was only the main lights that were out.

In the moment he was away, he heard Mel bump into something and say, "Ouch." Then he heard glass breaking, somewhere further away. It sounded as if it were coming from outside, but how could that be?

He returned to the nurses' station, gasped and shivered as he walked right into a patch of cold, damp air. Something white billowed off to his right—a ghost? Playing his flashlight over it, he saw it was only the sheer curtain over the window, fluttering in the breeze. That was where the cold air was coming from. "Mel?"

Nobody answered.

"Hey, come on, Mel. This isn't funny." He went over to the window, closed and locked it. Where was the storm window that should have covered it?

Suddenly the fax machine came to life, chattering and stuttering, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

The elevator groaned, binged with the noise that meant it had reached the call floor, and opened. "Again?" Trish's voice rang out through the dark.

Relieved, George aimed the flashlight in her direction. "Hey, don't blind me!" she complained, covering her eyes with a fast-food bag.

"Sorry." He lowered the light.

"It's okay. The Indian place was closed, so I had to go around the corner to good ol' Mickey D's. Where'd Mel go?"

"I don't know." George confessed. "Home…?" he suggested, stupidly.

"Oh. Well, then, you want her food?" She held up the bag.

"Sure!" He took it from her hand. "Thanks."

"Any time." She put hers down on the table, and walked over to the window he had just shut.

Opening it, she climbed up on the counter just below it. "See you later." she told him, and swung her legs out, just as if she were slipping into a swimming pool.

One moment she was there, and the next—there was just the open window.

George was frozen in place. He couldn't comprehend what he had just seen. Trish hadn't just—she couldn't have—and Mel had been there and then she wasn't—.

Then the lights came back on, and he screamed like a child waking from a nightmare.

* * *

This chapter is dedicated to Dethrose, who pleaded so feelingly for an explanation of the infamous pudding incident. Is it the real version? Who can tell, with the Joker! I must give props to Spider Robinson for inspiring it.


	41. But I Did Not Shoot The Deputy

Commissioner Gordon stood by the fresh new Batsignal on the roof of police headquarters and waited. Around him were four of his best and most trusted detectives: Montoya, Bullock, Rivers, and Thien. He wanted witnesses for this occasion. In his pocket was a special shield fresh from the engraver, right next to the print-out of the Requirements and Oath of the Deputy Pro-Tem. He resisted the urge to reach in and touch them again, instead playing it cool, watching the skies, waiting.

When Batman came, it was from the other direction. He came out from the shadow cast by the stairwell, backlit, his expression hidden in darkness. "There've been more suicides," the caped crusader began, but Gordon cut him off.

"Just a moment." Drawing out the Requirements and Oath, he read off, "By the powers and responsibilities vested in me as Chief Magistrate of Gotham City, it is my duty to maintain the common peace and order above all other obligations. To that end, in times of crisis when the rule of law has been broken beyond the ability of myself and the constabulary ordinary, I am empowered to request and require the assistance of such citizens who are of good character, viz, not given to public drunkenness, nor who are charges upon the state for their wherewithal in the manner of beggars, nor yet convicted of any felonious crime, and are more than twenty years of age, as I deem fit to restore the common peace and order."

"What?" Batman asked.

"I'm getting to it. This statute is from 1837, so the language is a bit old-fashioned. Are you given to displays of public drunkenness?"

"No."

"Are you dependant on public welfare or other forms of charity?"

"No."

"Have you ever been convicted of any felony?"

"No, and I'm over twenty."

"Good. You four have witnessed that I asked and he responded." Gordon addressed his detectives. He turned back to Batman. "Raise your right hand."

After a suspicious moment, the caped crusader did.

"By the power vested in me by the populace of Gotham City, I hereby deputize you as a constable extraordinary for the duration of this emergency. Do you swear you will carry out all orders, duties and responsibilities appertaining to that office in the interest of restoring peace and order to the city, faithfully, willingly, and industriously?"

"I do so swear." Batman said.

"Thank you. Here's your badge. Your pay is one pint of whiskey and one of molasses every day, plus two pounds of flour, one of bacon, another of beans and an ounce of salt. On Sundays you get a quarter of a pound of coffee instead of the whiskey, so as to observe the Sabbath with a clear and pure mind."

"This is hardly the time for jokes, Gordon."

"And this isn't a joke. That statute was never revoked, although I'm sure his Honor the Mayor has lawyers working on its repeal even as we speak. If you're an official member of the police force, even if it's only temporary, then you don't have to go sneaking in and out of crime scenes."

"I prefer to work in the shadows—and alone."

"And how many more suicides will happen because you want to—to maintain your cool?" Gordon shot back. "Forty-nine have been reported in the last three hours, thirty-five women and fourteen men, and we expect that number to go up before morning. All of them were nurses or nursing students. At 11:45, precisely thirty-six hours since the first wave at Gotham Central, all of them killed themselves with the simplest, easiest and surest method at hand.

"Some threw themselves off roofs or out of windows. Some stabbed themselves or slashed their throats or wrists. Others electrocuted themselves in the bathroom. One emergency room nurse, the wife of one of my men, shot herself in the head with his service revolver. Hangings, poisonings, air bubbles injected into a major vein or artery, drowning—and that's not even taking suspicious car accidents into consideration yet. And you refuse to work alongside us to solve this thing? If that's the case, _get off my roof_. You aren't worth my time."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"I only work by night." Batman broke it. "And my testimony might not be admissible in court, since I can't divulge my identity."

"We'll be on this thing twenty-four/seven until it's done." Gordon replied. "And if you have an officer or detective by you, they can testify in your stead. We need to get to the next level before the Joker and his confederate do. And if the person responsible is following a pattern, we have only thirty-six hours before the next wave comes. Who knows who'll be targeted the next time?"

"To begin with, I want access to Crane." Batman informed him.

"Jonathan Crane? You think he's involved?" Gordon queried.

"He's the person who knows more about the working of the subconscious mind and instinctual responses than anyone else in Gotham City. Once we know how this is being done, we'll know who. And we'll know how to stop it."

* * *

A/N: Yes, it's a short one. (sorry) More next time!


	42. Psychopathology

'Nooooo!' I wailed, wishing I could bury my head under a pillow or something. 'Not the eyeball scene again!' We were on his ugly thrift-store sofa in the Boom Factory's living room, having our private Asian-horror film-fest, and it was going a little too well.

I'd picked movies I thought he might enjoy, or at least suffer through without too much complaining. And I was right. He did enjoy them, but in a very Jokerish way, which was to say he laughed at the moments most people would be gasping in horror, criticized the fake blood for being the wrong color and consistency, and then went back to watch the good bits again and again and again.

"Now that is cinematic art." he commented as the windshield fractured into a perfect Uzumaki spiral. "It isn't even pretending to be real. Bew-ti-ful! I can just feel my cultural horizons expanding. Are there more like this out there?"

'A few. Though Uzumaki is pretty unique…This has been a learning experience for me, too. I've learned that if I'm ever solid enough, I will _never_ let you have control of the remote.'

"_Really_, now?" He gave me a sidelong look. "You might, ah, have to _wrestle_ me for it."

'Gladly. It would be worth it.'

He sat up and preened himself, grinning. "Nice to hear you say that, sassy girl. I feel the same way." He batted his eyelashes at me seductively.

'I didn't mean it in _that_ way, hentai. Look,' I coaxed. 'You're tired. Don't try to deny it; I can tell. You lost some blood earlier when you were trying to Scaramouche the steel fandango with Xena—.'

"Scaramouche the steel fandango? What language are _you_ speaking?"

'What, you don't get it? Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody? Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the fandango?' I sang. 'Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening me! For that matter, the 1952 movie with Stewart Granger, Mel Ferrar, and Janet Leigh. Scaramouche, the man born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad!'

"Okay, okay." He waved a hand. "Whatever."

His memory gaps were in the oddest places sometimes. Maybe he wouldn't know the movie, because lots of people believe nothing made before the first Star Wars could be worth watching, but _everybody_ knows that song.

'Anyhow, _you're tired_. When people get tired and by "people" I am including irrational and demented clowns, what they usually do about it is go to bed and get some sleep so they can be daisy-fresh and ready for a whole new day of terrorizing people, occasional homicides, and taunting Batman. How about it?'

"First I want you to admit it." He leaned over, leering at me wickedly.

'Admit what?'

"That I'm getting to you. In the last forty-eight hours, you, uh, you killed five people… You started off with Carter, then you set your shoes on those three at the modeling agency when you knew just what would happen—and I'm even gonna give you credit for the instructor over at Xena's. Five people, sassy girl. Before you know it, you'll be wallowing in the gutter along with me."

Oscar Wilde saved me, as his quote rose to my lips without my having to think about it. Well, not just Oscar Wilde. Chrissie Hynde helped too. 'All of us are lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.'

Yes, he was getting to me. I don't think anyone could live in the Joker's head and be unaffected. The person I was when I came to awareness in his head would not have let her homicidal shoes loose on anyone—but if he had gotten to me, I had also gotten to him. He was more stable, less prone to violence, happier than he had been only a few days before. If this association kept on long enough, perhaps one day we would meet in the middle.

When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

* * *

If Bruce Wayne's penthouse was a castle in the air, then Arkham Asylum was a cesspit. Every mental and moral toxin drained into it; it bred plagues and ill humors, and possibly, ghosts as well. Part prison, part mental hospital, all bad. No one was ever _cured_ there; a few were simply released when they were no longer considered threats to themselves or others. Or when the funding dried up, which ever came first.

That was where the Joker had been imprisoned, where the Scarecrow was mewed up, and, if the legal process continued as it had already begun, where Two-face would go after his bout with meningitis was over.

It was ugly and grim, inside and out. The disused art therapy room where Commissioner Gordon had arranged a post-midnight meeting between Batman and the former Doctor Crane (with Detective Montoya to chaperone) was dusty. Lumps of clay had hardened where they sat, tempera paints had dried out in the pots, patients' sketches littered the floor. Two or three dead flies lay on the windowsill, their bodies light as the ashes from an ex-lover's cigarette, and as cold.

In contrast Jonathan Crane's smile was as tranquil as his eyes, and his eyes were untroubled pools of aquamarine. He might have been enjoying a drink at a bar with a couple of friends, to judge by his demeanor. "I understand you're finally seeking help, Batman. To start with, I recommend a course of antidepressants and antipsychotics, combined with psychotherapy three times a week—stepping up the dosage and the frequency of sessions as necessary. Then—."

"No games, Crane." Batman rasped. "You lost your license when you were committed, and I wouldn't trust you to care for a dog in any case. I'm here about the suicides. I'm sure news about them has trickled down to your cell."

"Indeed it has. In fact, one of the suicides took place here. One of the male nurses stuck a probe through his ear and into his brain at precisely 11:45 PM. Not much of a loss to the profession, if you ask me."

"I didn't. I'm here because in spite of everything you've done, you're still the most knowledgeable person in Gotham when it comes to psychologically altered states of mind." Batman leaned over the bespectacled man.

"That's true." Crane admitted with pride. "You want to know how it's done…but there's something I want."

"Your release is not on the table." Montoya leaned against the wall. Handsome rather than beautiful, she had strong features and an equally strong character.

"My release?" Crane smiled charmingly. "No, I don't want to be released. This is Arkham. My life's work is here. Why would I walk away from all of this?"

"You're an inmate now, not a doctor. You don't have work anymore." the hero pointed out.

"My work is the study of fear and the lack thereof, the human mind in all its variations—and that I can do just as well on this side of the bars as on the other. What I want is to see the full video the Joker shot inside the modeling agency. All they show on the news are snippets. I want the complete thing."

"Why?" Batman asked.

"Because he's a fascinating case. There's a diagnostic tool that's used to determine if an individual is a psychopath, a list of twenty items, twenty traits of psychopathology, such as parasitic lifestyle, pathological lying, lack of empathy, criminal versatility. The diagnosing psychiatrist rates a subject on each with a score of zero, one or two according to how pronounced the trait is. An individual who scores thirty or more is generally considered to be a psychopath. He scored a twenty-six only because there were so many items for which there was no reliable data, such as early behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, and sexual promiscuity. I'd like to fill in some of those gaps."

"I can arrange that." Montoya answered. "After you've helped us with this."

"All right. Then I need details about this sudden trend toward self-immolation. From what I understand, every single one of the suicides last night acted perfectly normal up to and even during the act. Is that correct?"

Montoya had come prepared. "Yes, it is. We have eyewitnesses, reliable ones. George Mann at the Holyrood Assisted Living Facility was present when two of his co-workers fell to their deaths from a tenth-story window. He said the second girl was more casual about than she was when she went out for a sandwich. I have nine similar statements, all of which state that none of the deceased seemed to be aware of what they were doing, or emotionally involved, no more than if they were tying a shoelace."

"Tell me, have the brains of any of the victims been autopsied as yet?" Crane asked.

"Not that I know of." Batman replied. In Crane's presence, he was made uncomfortably aware that he was a college drop-out, and that the other man had several advanced degrees.

Montoya consulted her notes. "No. Not as yet. Toxicology reports nothing of interest..."

Crane dismissed that with a shake of his head. "This wasn't caused by any drug. I asked because I wanted to know if lesions similar to those of people suffering from reflex epilepsy have been found in their brains. Whether it was yes or no would answer quite a few questions while asking a lot more. How old was the oldest suicide thus far?"

Montoya answered that. "Thirty-five."

"Ah-hah. That is a very important clue. Over a hundred victims, aged nine to thirty-five…If I'm correct, you won't see any over the age of forty. No one older than a Gen-Xer."

"Why not?" Batman asked.

"I don't want to theorize without more facts at hand. After all, I could be wrong."

"If you want that video soon," Montoya said quietly, "you could take that chance."

"Hmmm. All right. Never let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that's the principle behind this. The Gen-Xers were the first mass multitaskers, the first generation who grew up three or more things at once—like watching television, doing their homework, and talking on the phone all at the same time, while keeping track of all three equally well.

"Since then, the stimuli have only increased. Cell phones, MP3 players, computers—today it's common for a young person to play a game and carry on an IM conversation while doing homework, watching a video, and talking on the phone at the same time, and _they don't even think about it_. My theory is that someone has worked out how to slip in a mental Trojan horse."

"How?" Batman asked.

"How else?" Crane shrugged. "Via the internet, of course. I believe it will turn out to operate in a way that's similar to reflex epilepsy, in which something as simple and normal as reading or flashing lights can trigger off a grand mal seizure. But don't you want to know who's responsible for this, too?"

"You know?" Montoya asked, startled.

"Of course. It's Ra's al Ghul. He is immortal, after all, and has to have some way to pass away the time." Crane sat back and smiled his tranquil smile.


	43. The Jougyal Pritay

"Ra's al Ghul is dead," Bruce Wayne interjected, surprising himself with his own vehemence. Henri Ducard's betrayal still flamed hot and fierce within him—yet for all of that, it had not totally consumed all the affection he felt for his mentor and teacher. On some level, he missed Ducard, even if the older man had proven himself false, manipulative, and tyrannical.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you, considering where and when you left him." Crane's eyes met his, lucid, intelligent, and free from guile. He knew. Crane knew Batman had left Ducard/Ra's on the train car, left him to crash and burn. What was the difference, morally, between killing a man and leaving him, injured and incapacitated, to die?

The finest of moral shades. The very finest_. I won't kill you, but that doesn't mean I have to save you_.

"If he isn't dead, how did he escape?" asked the caped crusader. Montoya was still present but silent, her eyes flicking from one man to the other as they fenced verbally, catching every nuance like the trained detective she was.

"He didn't." Crane replied. "He crashed, burned, and died. His followers found him and took him to what he calls the Lazarus Pit. It has the power to restore and revive the dead and the dying, bringing them back to the prime of life. Apparently the Elixir of Life comes with a label saying 'For External Use Only'…It doesn't work on everyone, or so he claims, and even those for whom it does work, it has some unfortunate side effects, including insanity. And then, too, it seems to leave one with a fanatical adherence to the Good Old Days.

"Didn't you find the Temple of the Blue Flower and the Great Valley to be charmingly anachronistic and unspoiled, Batman? I know I did."

At Batman's sudden sharp intake of breath, Crane smiled again. "Don't worry. I don't know who you are, although I'm sure I could find out without too much effort. In any case, it's immaterial, because you subsumed that person when you became Batman. That identity is a shell—this is who you really are. However, I do know he trained you, and that you lived in the Temple for some time. Didn't you find it odd that nowhere in the Great Valley was there any electricity or the modern conveniences that go with it? Or indoor plumbing? Nor modern medicine, the internal combustion engine, nor any evidence at all of an industrialized society? No?

"Well, the reason is that Ra's—or Ducard, take your pick—is keeping that valley more or less as it was the day he found it, some six hundred years ago. That was after wandering the East for a couple of hundred years. He was once Sir Henri Ducard, a Knight of the Crusades who followed Richard the Lionhearted to the Holy Land, you see, only he never went home again."

"I don't believe you." Batman growled at him.

"That's up to you." Crane remained unperturbed.

"If he's so anti-technology, how is he using the internet to manipulate these people into committing suicide?" Montoya contributed.

"Just because he likes to keep his little valley kingdom frozen in time doesn't mean he isn't keeping up with today elsewhere. He has other bases in other countries. And he wants Gotham City."

"So he's trying to take it by forcing innocent men, women and children to kill themselves?" she asked.

"I did say the Lazarus Pit sometimes caused mental instability, didn't I? I fancy he has a price for stopping the wholesale self-slaughter, and that price is—you." He turned to Batman once again. "He wants you back in the fold."

"Never." Batman gritted out.

"Please." Crane condescended. "The last time you got on your high horse was when the Joker wanted you to reveal your identity, and how many people died because you preferred to keep on playing hero? I'm sure it was in the double digits. Your selfishness is as monstrous as the Joker's complete disregard for human life. However, since the Joker and especially this 'Grace' have joined the game, I expect things will get much more complicated soon."

"Why single out Grace?" Montoya refused to be cut out of the conversation.

"He ought to know." Crane put Batman back on the spot.

"Why ask me?" he parried.

"Didn't you take any interest in the local culture around the Temple? The dances, the theater, the religious art? Grace replicates, in every detail, their worst boogeyman. Or, in this case, 'boogeywoman'. There's a ghost called the Jou-gyal Pritay, the angry, ravenous ghost of a murdered virgin. All the details of her costume, the long disheveled hair over her face, the white burial gown, the pink shoes of an unmarried, unattached girl—unique, I believe, to that region. It stems from the usual fear of death coupled with, ah-hah, no pun intended, a deep-rooted fear of female sexuality and the female procreative power. All the energy that should have gone to bringing children into the world, the life force, doesn't go away when she dies. It's perverted into a killing force.

"Any sane man who sees her naked face dies of fright, and she is insatiable. The only way to stop a Jou-gyal Pritay was to bury her at a crossroads so she would have as many men as possible on top of her during the day—symbolic intercourse, you understand."

"I don't know about all of that." Montoya interrupted as he was about to continue. "All I know is that she looks like the ghost in The Grudge."

"What?" Crane snapped, derailed.

"It's a movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar." Montoya explained. "A huge hit, too. She plays this nurse or something who's moved to Japan, and one day she's sent to a spooky house to take care of an old lady. The family seems to have abandoned her there, so Sarah goes exploring and it turns out there are these two ghosts in the house, a little boy and a woman. Grace looks a lot like the woman ghost, hair, white dress and all."

"I can't be bothered with the vagaries of popular culture!" Crane snapped. "My interest is in the memes of fear, not some Hollywood horror show."

"Well, there are these other movies that also use the pritay ghost. The American one was called The Ring, but the original, Ringu, was Japanese. Those were so scary people screamed out loud at the climax, and not many movies can do that these days. I think your boogeywoman has crossed over into popular culture big time." Montoya pointed out.

"I didn't say she couldn't be found elsewhere. Variations on the Pritay occur all over Asia. I merely said that those of Ra's Al Ghul's followers who were born and raised in the Great Valley would find her particularly disturbing. The Jou-gyal Pritay is to them what a giant bat, a demonic clown or even an apocalyptic scarecrow is in our culture. She has taken on the guise of inexorable death, unheeding of personal guilt."

"That would explain her connection to the Joker." Montoya speculated, "'Inexorable death, unheeding of personal guilt.' That's him all over."

"I still don't believe you." Batman met the Scarecrow's mild cerulean gaze. "I don't believe Henri Ducard is alive, and even if he were, I certainly don't believe he's over nine hundred years old. And this kind of carnage is unlike him. He was ruthless and arbitrary, but he was not a monster."

"I guess you'll find out for yourself soon enough." Crane replied, smiling once again. "I think I'd like to go back to my cell now, thank you."

"Just a moment." Montoya put up a hand. "What is your current connection to Ra's al Ghul or Henri Ducard, if he is alive?"

"Me?" Crane's ecpression was one of perfect innocence. "I'm merely a tool, used and then discarded. Seduced and abandoned--ideologically speaking."

* * *

A/N: Some of the details in this chapter I made up, some I enhanced, some are real.


	44. Waking The Dead

When I woke up the next morning, it was practically the next afternoon. I slept nearly twelve hours straight, and I _never_ do that. Not without serious medication, and then I feel hung over. Instead I felt…well rested, although fuzzy-brained and groggy. So groggy that the first big surprise of the day hardly surprised me at all.

Grace was asleep in bed next to me, lying on her side and facing away. Of course all I could see was her hair. I blinked. She was asleep and I was awake. That had never happened before. Interesting.

I got up and did what any guy would do: went to the bathroom and took a good long piss with the door open, scratching, yawning, farting, picking a zit, all that stuff. When I was done, I went back to the bed and looked down at Grace.

The bedclothes were rucked up in the shape of a body; there was nothing solid under them. I poked at where her shoulder would have been, just to be sure, and the covers flattened. Nothing was there, nothing tangible, anyway. I went around to the other side, to see what she looked like from that angle. Her candy-colored shoes were at the bottom of the bed, looking inanimate and innocuous. I gave them a wide berth. After all, who knew how fast they would get hungry again?

Grace looked exactly the same from that angle—as if she were lying on her side facing away from me. I went back to my side of the bed. Still the same—just hair. Her head was a featureless knob. That was odd. I would have expected to see a nose sticking out, the shape of an ear. Usually I only saw things that strange inside my head. Still, she wasn't a holographic projection, she was a ghost, and what's a ghost without a little weird?

"Grace?" I tried. She didn't stir. I went off and put on some coffee. Why shouldn't she sleep, if she needed to?

Where to start today? Well, there was that website with all the dots. As the only thing on Porter's flashdrive, it had to be important. I turned on the computer. While it was booting up, I put on the news. What I saw there convinced me it was time to wake Sleeping Beauty.

I got a sauce pan and a spoon, and proceeded to make enough noise to wake the dead.

Banging the bottom of the pot with vigor, I crowed, "Rise and shine, Gracie! We've got places to go, things to do, people to kill!"

Except that I only got as far as "Rise an—," when a small bomb went off in my face. At least that was what it seemed like, because Grace sat up bolt upright, her hair flying everywhere, screaming her head off. (not literally.) 'Nyaaaaaaaaah!'

I wasn't scared; nothing scares me, not even the ginger-beer trick, but I _was_ startled and I fell back smack on my ass. I think I caught a glimpse of her face, all glaring dark eyes and a wide, sensual mouth against pale skin, but it came and went so fast it could have been my imagination.

"What the hell?" I asked from my vantage point on the floor. "You should have, uh, warned me you weren't a morning person."

She leaned over the edge of the bed to look down on me. 'Words cannot express how much I _loathe_ you at this moment.' she seethed at me.

"Since when do you sleep when I'm not sleeping?" I asked.

'Since—I don't know. Since this morning. But if you slept well, you can thank me for it. You have screaming nightmares every hour on the hour and in between times, you gnash your teeth. I had to keep talking you down.'

"Huh. I never knew that. Well, thanks. Now get moving. The suicides started again last night and the tally is up to seventy-two and counting."

'Wait. What do I smell?'

"Disaster again?" I asked.

'No. _Coffee_.' She was up in a flash of wild floral pajamas, slipping her shoes on along the way.

Her destination was the kitchen, where she hung over the coffee pot like a pneumonia patient over a humidifier, inhaling or absorbing or however she smelled without a nose or lungs. 'Ahhhhhh.' she sighed. 'So good.'

"Uh, priorities?" I asked pointedly. "What's more important here?"

'Oh, you shut up. I have an entire sense today that I didn't have yesterday, and it isn't just my imagination. I want to enjoy this for thirty seconds before we get to work, and I'm _going_ to. I can smell coffee—.' She flitted around the kitchen. 'and these apples, and the sugar in the bowl, and… you. I can smell you.'

She came to a halt right next to me. The top of her head was exactly level with my eyes, and I would have felt her breath on my neck if she had any. "Uh—how do I smell?"

'Slightly skunky. Not bad, though. Not bad at all. A sponge-down and some deodorant will take care of it.'

Aaaah, no. There went the involuntary reflex again, and my morning wood had only just gone away. "Uh, could ya give a guy a little room here?" I asked, stepping back. "I swear, you like doing this to—You do enjoy teasing me, don't you?" I realized. That had to be it. She wasn't trying to push me away, she was playing keep-away-closer.

'Maybe I'm beginning to.' she admitted primly. 'Then again, sniping at you is one of my only forms of amusement, hentai.'

"You, uh, you shouldn't write checks you can't cash."

'But you have _no_ idea what's in my bank account.' she countered.

"Uh—uh, look, you watch the news and smell whatever you want to. I'm—going to the bathroom." I had found something more stimulating than Grace when she wasn't trying to be sexy, and that was Grace when she was.

* * *

A/N: A fun fluffy chapter just because I was in the mood. Less than a month until the release of The Dark Knight on DVD, Yay!


	45. Jay?

Sometimes I disgusted myself. One good whiff of his pheromones and what was I doing? Flirting with him like a shameless hussy. Being able to smell had gone right to my head, the coffee smelled rapturous, the apples smelled like the concentration of every summer day that went into their ripening, and he smelled… I did not want to dwell on that.

But he was so adorable (if one could apply the word to a homicidal maniac with severe facial scarring) with his obviously-just-woken-up look, wandering around in t-shirt and shorts with his hair going every which way and no make up on yet. _Nonononononooo_.

Not a good way to be thinking, and teasing him was unkind. I could hear the water running while he dealt with his 'involuntary reflex', which was thoughtful of him.

Wait a second. Mental rewind. What had he been trying to tell me before I went all ADD over being able to smell?

"_The suicides started again last night and the tally is up to seventy-two and counting_."

Oh, no.

Was that seventy-two including the fifty-four girls or seventy-two in the second wave alone? I couldn't ask him at the moment as he was busy and I was trying hard not to pay mental attention.

I went into the living room area, and discovered the thrift store sofa smelled as if a large dog had lifted its leg on it at some time in the distant past, the downside of being able to smell. The TV had gone to commercials, so I staked out a spot on the floor in front of it and waited. Finally a newscaster came on.

"Last night at 11:45PM, precisely thirty-six hours after the mass suicide of fifty-four schoolgirls at Gotham Central Subway Station, another wave of suicides swept Gotham City. This time it affected nurses and nursing students, all of whom simultaneously and independent of one another put an end to their lives. At this time, seventy-two suicides and suspicious deaths have been reported in Gotham City in the surrounding suburbs.

"The number is only expected to rise, as the bodies of individuals who lived alone are discovered and reported. Four additional attempted suicides remain in critical condition in area hospitals under twenty-four hour watch. Anyone who has a friend, relative or co-worker in the field of nursing is urged to get into contact with that person to verify that they are alive and well. If you cannot, please contact the Gotham City Police Department at this toll-free number… " The news caster went on to break the figure down into gender, twenty-six men and forty-six women, and went on about how diverse the methods of suicide were. It was appalling.

I heard a noise behind me, and turned. There stood the Joker. He had taken the opportunity to wash while he was at it, and was now pulling on a fresh shirt, this one with a paisley pattern as opposed to the previous day's hexagons. (Which were based on a traditional Japanese textile. I notice these things.) The rest of his costume consisted of wild plaid socks and fresh underwear.

'He learned from his mistake.' I told him, subdued. 'Instead of trying to make them all show up in one place at the right time to commit suicide together in the same way, he had them commit it right where they were. I'm sure he got a lot more of his target group this time.'

"Yeah. And he had them do it using whatever way was easiest and closest." He sat down at his computer.

'That website—.'

"All ready on it, sassy girl." He pulled up the page of dots.

'It looks like it did when we came back last night. There were a lot more dots than when you first found the link.' I observed. 'Could they be using pink dots to represent girls who've committed suicide, pale blue for boys, red for women and bright blue for men? Because if that's the case they should be punished just for using such a cliché. You'd think they could be a little more creative. Too bad we didn't count them before we went out to eat.'

"Not, uh, to worry. There are ways of getting a snapshot of how a site looked in the past. Once it's up on line, it's there forever, like the light from Alpha Centauri reaching us years after it left the star. All you have to do is—ah, find it. Have a look."

I did. We did a count and then compared it against the site as it was now. Fifty red dots and thirty bright blue dots had been added.

'I wonder if that's the number of the actual dead or if it's the number of people who were—activated to commit suicide. Can you roll back to before and after the girls jumped?'

He could. After clicking back and forth and adding and subtracting, we determined that sixty pink dots had been added about three hours before the mass suicide, but that the number had been adjusted to reflect the number of successful deaths, subtracting six to arrive at fifty-four. We further determined that the number had not yet been adjusted for the nurses who had survived the attempt, the four in critical condition.

"Interesting." The Joker mused.

'Jay?' I tried. 'I believe strongly that this web address should be shared with the police.'

"Jay?" He quirked his face at me. "I thought it was 'Joe'."

'You just don't seem like a "Joe".' I explained. 'I thought I'd give "Jay" a try, unless it makes you gag.'

"Jay." He tried it out. "Aah, what the hell. It doesn't put any boils on _my_ ass. Sorry, but I don't agree with giving the police this link. Right now they're running around like ants that have had their lil' old hill kicked over. They've got nothing, and, uh, the press, the press are standing there with a magnifying glass, ready to fry them. Give them this and they'll turn around and leak it to the media just so's they can say they have a lead. Then the guy in charge of this scheme will kill the site and move shop. This way it stays live."

We might have argued the point further if, on the television, a reporter had not asked Commissioner Gordon this question right at that moment. "Commissioner Gordon, is it true you've turned to the Batman for help in solving these crimes?"

Nothing could have been better calculated to get our attention. We both turned to the television to see Gordon set his chin and reply. "Last night, in the presence of witnesses, Batman was sworn in and duly deputized as an officer of the law under a legal statute which permits such discretionary hiring in an emergency. I trust we all agree that the mass suicides of our daughters and health care professionals constitutes an emergency. Batman has been assigned to this case until such time as this crisis is over. He will be given orders, just as any other officer, and expected to carry them out."

"What about the Joker? How is he involved in this atrocity?" another reporter called out.

Gordon took a deep breath. "We do not believe the Joker is in any way responsible for these suicides. Until we find evidence to the contrary, he is not a suspect. He remains a dangerous fugitive at large and we are continuing the search for him."

"They deputized the flying rodent?" the Joker— no, _Jay,_ exploded. "When I've done ten times as much to move this case along? They should be deputizing _me_!"

'That's not going to happen until the day the Devil stops by the nearest sporting goods store to place an order for ice skates because his home's gone all chilly.' I observed.

"Okay, maybe you're right, but to _ignore_ my contribution like that? After all the work I did?"

'Don't you mean "our contribution" and "work we did"?' I asked, but he was too infuriated.

"I'm not gonna put up with this." he vowed. "They're, uh, they're gonna regret this."

Hoo-boy. This could _not_ be a positive development.


	46. Bruce and Rachel

Bruce found Rachel by Harvey's bedside, holding his good hand and looking utterly blank. Whatever she was thinking or feeling was being blocked by some internal censor which presented to the world an utterly neutral countenance. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail and she wore grey in a shade which enhanced the blue of her eyes and made her skin look like white and pink rose petals. She was beautiful, and she was not his. She was Harvey's, by her own choice.

Harvey was asleep. Whether his was a natural slumber or one aided by drugs, the result was the same. He was still strapped down, and two of Gordon's men guarded the door against his escape. Once he was well enough, he would be going straight to jail, there to be evaluated, analyzed, his mental state examined under a microscope, to determine if he were fit to stand trial.

Bruce rapped on the doorframe with his knuckles, and Rachel jumped, dropping Harvey's hand. "Bruce!" she scolded.

"Sorry." he apologized. "How is he doing?"

She sighed. "Well, he's out of the iron lung and breathing on his own. The meningitis is responding to the antibiotics, but mentally…Mentally, they're not optimistic. He has—the doctors believe there may be minor but permanent brain damage. He's paranoid and he has violent mood swings. Not to mention the way he relies on that coin of his…" She glanced at her wrist, which was encircled with bruises.

"Did he do that to you when you tried to take it away from him?"

Bruce reached out for her arm, but she jerked away. "It looks worse than it really is. That's the curse of having pale skin." she explained.

"Maybe you need to get out of this room for a little while." Bruce suggested. He held up a couple of boxes tied together with string. "Alfred's worried that you're not eating well. He packed us something. Come on. Come outside with me for a little while. There's a bench right by this side of the hospital, I can see it from this window."

"I—if it's just for a little while." She stood and put on her jacket.

The autumn trees' reds and golds burned bright against a sky as blue as a child's watercolor, with cotton-puff clouds dotting it here and there. Rachel closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

"See?" Bruce encouraged her. "You won't see too many more days like this, this year. It would be a crime to miss it."

"Speaking of crime," Rachel opened her eyes to glance at him as they took the path around the side of the hospital to their chosen bench. "congratulations on finally getting a job. I was watching the news when Gordon announced Batman was now a deputy. What are they paying you, by the way?"

Bruce grimaced. The commissioner had taken him by surprise, which was why he had gone along with it. Now the crime fighter was having second thoughts, especially after the Scarecrow had dissected his past in front of Montoya's shrewd dark eyes. "A pint of whiskey and a pint of molasses every day, plus beans and bacon and some other odds and ends. On Sundays I get a quarter of a pound of coffee instead of the whiskey."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, that was Gordon's idea of irony. He had to go back about a hundred and seventy years or so to find a statute that would let him get away with hiring me."

"I guess it's either laugh or cry." Rachel observed. They sat down on the bench, and Bruce handed her a box.

"Here you go. I have no idea what they are, but knowing Alfred, they'll be good."

"It won't matter. Everything's been tasting the same lately." However, she did untie the string and open hers.

Bruce unwrapped a sandwich from his own box. Alfred had gone to some trouble to make the lunches attractive, adding fresh grapes and a little pastry to each box. "Mine seems to be roast beef with some kind of onion relish. What about yours?"

Rachel picked up one of hers and undid the paper. "Prociutto and some kind of spread. Fig, I think." She took a bite without enthusiasm.

Bruce watched her chew and swallow as if it hurt her throat. "Umm…what about your job? You said you were going down to the DA's office this morning."

"I don't have a job any more." she confessed. "They didn't say so in so many words, but I've already been replaced. So has Harvey."

"What did they say?" Bruce asked. A couple of floors above them, at his request, a nurse opened Harvey's window, so quietly that neither noticed.

"Things like how glad they were to see me, how wonderful it was I'd survived, how awful it must have been, you must call me, we'll have lunch sometime and you can tell me all about it, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm sure there's some legal action I can take, but right now I don't seem to have the energy—and then, there's Harvey."

"Uh, yeah." Bruce said, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily.

"I don't know what I'm going to do. My worst nightmares never came close to this…" She put her half-eaten sandwich back in the box and took out the napkin Alfred had thoughtfully included. "He killed three people. It'll be years before he gets out of prison or out of Arkham, whichever one they send him to—that is, if he ever is released.

"Then I have to face the fact that he'll never recover fully, physically or mentally. Not ever. I love him anyway, and it hurts me, it hurts… I don't know what I'm going to do." She tore the paper napkin into tiny shreds as she spoke, one pinch at a time, letting them drop from her fingers among the autumn leaves. She was not crying. Perhaps she had cried herself out, or perhaps the floodgates had not yet broken.

"Do I marry him now, as he is? Because if I do, I know what's going to happen. My whole life is going to revolve around him. Children will be out of the question. With his impulse control problems and his anger issues, how could I even think about bringing them into our lives? Besides, he'll become my child—he'll need as much attention as any child, with the appointments and court dates, and keeping track of his meds. And then, one day, will I do what his mother did to his father, and have him institutionalized?"

"You aren't married to him yet. You were barely even engaged." Bruce pointed out. "You don't have to commit your life—."

"Do you think that makes this any easier? I still love him. If I walk away from him now, it's a betrayal. Of him. Of myself. You can't just stop loving a person as easily as you turn off a light switch. But…sometimes, sometimes, I look at him and I think: if only he'd died. Then I could mourn him properly. I'd hurt and I'd bleed inside but one day it would be over. And then I hate myself for thinking like that." Her words came out as if they were under pressure.

"Rachel!" Bruce interrupted. "It's okay. Look at all you've been through these last few days—you were trapped in a fallout shelter for months, then you have to face this—I don't think there's anything strange about your, your confusion. You could probably stand to talk to a therapist or somebody like that."

"Yeah?" she snapped. "Well, as I recall, you went through a string of expensive therapists for years, and you're not exactly the poster boy for successful therapy, are you?"

The hurtful words hung in the air between them for a moment. She broke the silence. "I'm sorry, Bruce. I know you're trying to help. I shouldn't have said that."

He managed a smile. "That's okay. If our friendship can't stand a few angry words now and then, it wouldn't be much of a friendship, would it? Rachel—?" His voice rose, questioning. "Would you like a job?"

"What?" She blinked in surprise.

"Would you like a job? A real job, not a cushy made-up position that pays you a lot of money for practically nothing."

"Doing what?" she asked, guarded.

"Spreading my money around where it will do the most good, as the first-ever director of the brand new Thomas and Martha Wayne Charitable Foundation."

"If you've come up with this just as a way of hanging on to me, or because I don't have any other employment prospects, then it's a very bad joke."

"**_No_**." He said it emphatically. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for _me_. I'm doing it because I can't justify spending millions on my 'little hobby' while there are hungry children in Gotham City. Remember what you said the other day, that I couldn't punch out ignorance or back-kick poverty, and those were the real enemies? You were right. I mentioned then that I was thinking about endowing a charitable foundation, and you said it was the first sensible idea I'd had in years."

"That's right." she remembered. "God, it seems so long ago…"

"I hope you'll say yes, because if you turn it down I'll have to find somebody else, and that'll be a real headache. Lucius and Alfred are both too busy, and you're the only other one I trust."

"What exactly do you have in mind when you say 'where it will do the most good?'" she asked.

"To begin with—how about a summer breakfast program for underprivileged children. How many children out there wind up eating potato chips and drinking soda for breakfast every morning, instead of milk and cereal with bananas? Five dollars each per day ought to buy them a healthy breakfast. That kind of thing." he said, quoting Grace. He might not have liked the messenger, but the message itself was valid.

"Hmmm. I don't know…If you're going to get them together for breakfast, it seems like a waste of time."

"How so?" he asked.

"Well, you'll be serving breakfast in some kind of facility, right? Once you have them there, you could have activities organized for after breakfast, like a summer day camp in the city. I mean, think of all the things that have been dropped from the curriculum because they aren't on the standardized tests, like music and art. Life-enriching things. If you came up with a way to make them fun, you could teach those. Then, too, childhood obesity is on the rise. Kids today need to get more exercise. Games and sports, even dancing…Why are you smiling at me like that?" Rachel stopped to glare at Bruce.

"I take it that's a 'Yes, you'll take the job'?"

"I don't know. How much does it pay?" she countered.

"It's a charitable organization. You're not supposed to be in it for the money."

"Let me remind you that you get what you pay for." was her tart reply.

Above them, Harvey Dent could hear their voices clearly. His one good eye streamed tears which he could not wipe away. His dead eye simply stared.


	47. Moving Out

"It's time to move it along." The Joker, who might or might not now be 'Jay' to me, said, looking around the Boom factory. "We've been here long enough. Live too long in one place, and the locals get too, uh, curious."

'Uh—okay.' I replied. I wasn't in love with the Factory, but I'd been getting used to it. 'Where are we going?'

"You'll like it." he promised. "Thing is, though, we gotta move my materials and a lot of equipment, cause we are never coming back. The Boom Factory is about to live up to its name."

'Why?'

"One-uh, because I figure Gus, who's the one who got away the other night, you know, when you scared Carter to death, is about far enough away from Gotham that he feels like he can call the cops and squeal on where I am, and two-uh, I am so annoyed at those same cops for deputizing Batsy that I have to scratch this itch right away, and three-uh, I just want to blow something up really, really bad, for what you might call, uh, Freudian reasons, get me? I'm going to make a great big hole in the ground."

'How big a hole?'

"I dunno yet. Big. A couple of city blocks. Why?"

'There is the issue of innocent bystanders.'

He thought that was very funny. "Innocent bystanders? In this neighborhood? In Gotham City, no less?" He whooped with laughter. "Aaaah. You crack me up."

'You are going to play by your guideline, right?'

"Guideline? What are you talking about?"

'The one where you give people a chance to escape first, remember? Remember?' I must have sounded a little panicked, because he chuckled.

"Just kidding, sassy girl. Yeah, I'll give them their chance. You have my word."

I was sure he would keep his word—but I was also sure he would cut it very, very fine. However, as even he wasn't sure what he was going to do yet, I was willing to let it go for the moment. 'Just remember I'm looking over your shoulder.'

"As if I could forget."

So his henchmen spent much of the day carting stuff out to a stolen van, which took a lot of supervision on his part when it came to the explosives.

There wasn't anything I could do to help, of course, so I stayed invisible and goofed off. Well, I didn't goof off so much as test what my limits had grown to, how far away from the Jo—from _Jay_ I could get before the invisible bungee stopped me. My range was now about half a block in all directions, including up and down.

I only returned once he'd sent off the truck with the explosives. Then I turned visible and walked around the corner as if I'd simply been out for a walk, because Lewis was still around, and my supernatural status was still a secret.

'I notice you're not riding in that truck.' I observed.

"I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid." he replied. "If that thing crashes, it's, uh, 'Bye-bye' to half of Gotham City. We're gonna wait until they phone me saying they got to the cave safe and in one piece before we join them, and we're not leaving here until they get a good head start."

'Which also explains why Lewis is helping you move and why your personal effects are going in that SUV.' I guessed.

"You got it. I don't want anything happening to my biographer or my best suits."

Lewis emerged from the Boom Factory carrying a box of DVDs, my Asian horror ones on top, and stowed it in the vehicle, while Jay went back in for more. The writer-henchman paused to talk to me. "Good to see you again, Grace—it is Grace, right?"

'Yes.' I answered. 'And you're Lewis.'

"That's right. Hey, you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

'For your book?'

"Yeah, for my book."

'No, I don't mind. I might not answer all of them, though—and if you do put me in, could you not refer to me as his "shorty"? I don't care for that name.'

He chuckled. "That's fair. I promise I won't. What about 'old lady'? Would you mind if I called you that?"

'"Old lady" has more dignity.' I concluded. 'I wouldn't be offended.'

"All right, then. Uh—you two are…together, right?"

'In a way.' I told him. 'and I refuse to explain any further.'

"That's cool. Aren't you afraid he's gonna, you know, hurt you or something?"

'No.'

"Why not?"

'He won't hurt me because he can't hurt me.' I smiled. 'and he can't hurt me because I'm already dead.'

* * *

I came out just in time to catch the last thing Grace said to Lewis, and also to see how he looked at her--as if a kitten he was petting turned out to be rabid. "Okay, Gracie." I said, having just had a wonderful idea.

"it's time for you to get heroic."

'What?' she asked, turning.

"I said I'd give the bystanders an out, and you're it. I set the timer on the bomb in there for twenty minutes from now." I jerked a thumb at the Boom Factory. "You've got fifteen minutes to clear out everybody on this block, leaving us five minutes to get clear. Better get moving, sassy girl."

She made a sound of disgust, turned on her pink heel, and ran.

"Um, Joker—did you hear what she just said?" Lewis asked, sidling over.

"What, that she's dead. Uh-huh. She thinks she's a ghost."

"Right." he said carefully. "—and where did you two meet, exactly?"

"In Arkham." I told him, which was technically the truth.

He nodded sagely. "In Arkham." His tone suggested that fact explained everything. "She was a patient there?"

"Yeah." Someone—no, several someones—started screaming in terror somewhere nearby. Grace was getting down and getting scary.

"And she helped you escape?" I could see him taking mental notes for his book.

"Helped me? No." When I thought of how I first reacted to having Grace in my head, how I'd wanted to get rid of her—what a mistake that would have been!—I had to grin. "Let's say she inspired me to escape."

"Okay." He nodded again. "I can see that. I guess they kind of frown on, what do you call it? Fraternizing? among patients. It isn't what you'd call romantic in there either."

"You got that right."

"How come they haven't said anything about her escape on the news?" he asked.

"She was technically a voluntary commitment." I ad-libbed. "Not really all that voluntary, under the surface, but, uh, legally she was free to walk whenever she liked."

"So what's her story?"

Ah, an opportunity for a really good lie.

"Adopted from China or Korea or one of those places where they want boys, not girls, into a high-achievement family. After twenty years or so of Advanced Placement courses, ballet lessons, French lessons, volunteering every weekend, participating in Walk-a-thons and all that, trying to Live Up To Ex-pec-ta-tions." I drew out the word, "plus having to prove wrong all the people who said 'Don't adopt, you're only asking for trouble', she kinda cracked. Tried to off herself and failed, but she believes she succeeded. Now she thinks she's dead, and because she's dead, it doesn't matter what she does."

"Do you know if her adoptive family was Asian?" Lewis's eyes narrowed.

"I don't think so."

"There's a myth perpetuated in American society that adoption into another race has no significant psychological fallout if they love the child enough." he said, "but it doesn't wash. No identity, no role models, except for the mainstream American media. What would she have to choose from? The stereotypes of the Dutiful Daughter, the submissive, eroticized China Girl, the Dragon Lady…"

"There are lots of ghosts in Asian cinema," I contributed. More screaming, now from further away. I hoped she was having fun with it.

"Fashioning her self from the icons of the culture that rejected her for her gender…"

What was this? First Gracie turned sultry on me, and now Lewis was getting intellectual. "If that's what you're planning to write about her, it makes me wonder what you're writing about _me_. You know, you're a lot more interesting these days." I added. "but everything in moderation, that's, uh, my motto." Taking out my favorite knife, I picked a bit of gristle out from between my teeth.

"Got it." Lewis looked scared, which was just how I wanted him.

Still more screaming. A man rounded the corner and pelted past us at top speed, which wasn't all that fast because he was hugely fat. I had to guffaw at the way his flab bounced. His face was the face of a man running from a nightmare. "Run," he puffed as he went past.

"Is she doing that?" Lewis asked, looking after the man.

"Yeah."

"How? She wasn't armed--was she?"

"Let's just say, uh, that she did a _really good_ job of fashioning her self from the icons of the culture that rejected her."

Gunfire and more screams reached our ears. "Shoot it, shoot it!" someone howled.

"You ain't worried about her catching a bullet or something?" he asked.

"Gracie? Nah. She wouldn't let a thing like that happen."

"You sure?" he asked.

"Wait and see." I replied.

"If you say so…"

A few minutes later, Grace returned, her step quick and light as a dancer's. "Two minutes to spare," I told her, checking my watch.

'I think I got everyone, and if I didn't, it wasn't for lack of trying.' she told us.

"That's my girl. Kill anybody?"

'No. I might have scared ten years off their lives, but that's at the other end, so I'm not too concerned.'

"Oh, well. Maybe next time. Ready to check out the new digs?"

"Yes."

I opened the front passenger side door for her, and she got in. As I went around to the other side, Lewis commented. "She sure doesn't weigh much. That thing didn't even shimmy when she got in, but…"

"But what?" I asked as I got in and he opened the door to the back.

"Didn't she ever learn how to use a barrette?"

'In the afterlife, there are no hair accessories.' Grace said solemnly, but I could tell there was a laugh underneath.

We drove off.

'So where is this place?' she asked.

"There's this estate in the Palisades," I replied. "Do you know what a 'Folly' is?"

'Uh—a fake castle or ruin?' she guessed. 'A kind of garden ornament for the very rich.'

"Yep. Remember Talia's boyfriend, Bruce Wayne? About a year ago, he got so plastered he burned his house down. He's having it rebuilt, but till it's done, nobody's living on the estate. One of his great-great-grandfathers had a folly built way off on the grounds. It's a stone tower three stories high. I fixed up the top floor. They had it wired up to play bell music, so there's electricity, and it's next to this little waterfall that comes out of the cave further up the hill, so that takes care of the water. There's caves all over the property, actually. That's where the goodies from the Boom Factory are going, where it's nice and cool…"


	48. Autumn Musings

Jay wanted to watch his handiwork in action, so he drove us through several twisting side streets and across the 7th street bridge to a parking lot which overlooked the riverfront and the Boom Factory. It wasn't long before the first charges went off, and I had to admit it was impressive: massive orange fireballs, the _crummmmp_ of the explosion set off by the high-pitched tinkle of glass shattering. Every crevice in sight vomited up river rats, which threw themselves into the water to escape the fire.

Then the second series went off, and the riverside wall of the Factory cracked and fell off in one piece, like a doll house with a removable front. The rest of the building glowed with the intense heat, softening, melting and burning like a marshmallow. The air shimmered and the river hissed and steamed.

And what was Jay doing while that was going on? Not hooting and whooping with laughter, slapping his thigh and congratulating himself on his cleverness, but watching with the self-critical eye of an artist.

"Not bad," he assessed his work. "When you work on such a, uh, small scale like that, you get to see the whole picture at once, all the details." He refused to move until the sirens started closing in on us.

By the time he dropped Lewis off, the clowns in the truck with the explosives called to let him know they had gotten to the cave without any disasters. (not that we wouldn't have known it if something had happened. The explosion probably would have been visible from space.) We headed for the Wayne estate in the heart of the Palisades.

Putting it simply, the Palisades equaled money. Way back before income taxes, when men like Vanderbilt, Morgan, Dupont and Carnegie were making money on a scale that put Bill Gates in the shade. Of course they had to show off their wealth, and to do that they bought up big tracts of land and built stately manor homes so they could pretend they were Mr. Darcy at Pemberly, with mixed results. I think several species of hardwood trees became extinct thanks to their demands for exotic and unique homes.

Most of the manor houses still existed, albeit converted to country clubs or museums, the lands having been sold off to developers who divided and subdivided, building more modest luxury homes, ones which cost only three or four million, not billions. The Wayne estate, however, was still intact, even if the alcoholic playboy heir to it had burned down the house.

'They say every great fortune begins with a sponge and ends with a spigot,' I remembered.

"Say what?" Jay replied.

'The sponge is the one who sucks up all the money, and the spigot is the one who lets it run out. I was just wondering if Bruce Wayne was the spigot.'

"Nah. Wayne Industries makes money faster than he can waste it."

'How nice for him. By the way, I like the backstory you invented for me.' I turned to him.

"You do?" he asked, too casually to be so indifferent. "It was just something I came up with, uh, off the cuff, you might say."

'You're really good at thinking on your feet.' I told him, and meant it. 'There was just enough detail to be plausible without going over the top, and you didn't make it so horrific that Lewis was crying in his beer. A lesser liar would have made up something about how I was raped three times a day for the last five years by my father, my brothers, an uncle, the neighbors, and the neighbors' Saint Bernard.'

That made him laugh. "_Now_ who's being a hentai? Thanks, though."

'You're welcome. I've been thinking.' I began.

"Uh-oh. What now?"

'I think I should pretend to be the shy and retiring type around your henchmen, too scared to say more than two words to them. Lewis excepted, of course. I'll even let you order me to…take a powder. That way they won't wonder why I'm too delicate a flower to help carry boxes of explosives. Nor will _you_ come across as whipped.'

"Well, aren't you the sweetest! You think I, uh, can't handle them on my own?" he needled sarcastically.

'No, I _know_ you can. This way you might not have to kill them.'

We passed the main gates to the Wayne estate with their wrought iron initials and kept going. 'But—.' I began. 'Ah, there must be an access road. I suppose we can't exactly drive up that sweeping carriageway in full view of the main thoroughfare.'

"Got it in one guess, sassy girl." At the next intersection he turned left, down a tree-lined street with few houses, then left again, down a road where the trees grew thicker and closer together. A third left, and this road was more like a tunnel, for the trees overlapped, their branches entwining above it. Then a right onto a gravel surface, and a cave yawned open before us.

He slowed down and stopped. "Showtime!" he said in an aside to me.

Four clowns lounged around the cave and under the trees by the truck, and they snapped to attention as he got out and went around to my side.

Yanking the door open, he pointed at me, and I pretended to shrink back. "This is Grace. Get used to seeing her around." To me he said. "You don't need to get friendly with any of these guys, and you don't need to know what's going on around here. Go look at the pretty flowers or something, and don't come back for…half an hour."

I nodded as I stepped down from the SUV and headed off into the woods. As I walked away, I heard him say "You're, uh, probably expecting me to say something like, 'Lay a finger on her and I'll cut your dick off', but I'm not gonna bother. If you're that dumb, you're already dead. You just haven't stopped moving yet…"

The Wayne estate was so big one could almost forget there was an outside world. No power lines cut the sky into pieces, no buildings intruded on my line of sight, but the distant roar of a jet and the muted clamor of traffic reminded me that Gotham was still there. Money could buy this tranquility, but chance dictated that it belonged to a drunken asshole who couldn't possibly appreciate it. I wandered through pools of light amid the shade. How cold was it out here? I couldn't tell.

That was a blessing and a curse. I could not feel the chill, but I couldn't feel the warmth of the sun on my face, either. No discomforts meant no pleasures. Ahead of me, a small herd of deer, five in number, grazed with the single-minded determination of creatures who appreciated that today's bounty might not be there tomorrow; wiser than humans, then. One of them, a young doe whose coat still had traces of her baby-dappling, raised her head at my approach to gaze at me with mild interest, while the others ignored me.

I could guess why that was. I might be human shaped and human sized, but I made no sound as I walked, not even a rustle of leaves or snap of a twig, and I had no scent. As long as I was silent and made no sudden moves, I was no more a threat than mist drifting over the ground. I felt a desperate need to prove my existence, so I waved my arms violently and shouted 'Boo!' at them.

They fled, flashing their white tails at me as they sprang over fallen trees and stumps. The birds in the trees took wing while smaller creatures of the trees and grasses scurried for cover, chipmunks and mice and such. I was left alone among the branches and trunks, the leaves falling down around and through my insubstantial form, glorious in all the colors of flame, dressed up for their deaths. In a few weeks the bare branches would show against the sky like black lace on a blue-white satin gown, and the leaves would be like sodden rags, well on their way to becoming no more than another micro-millimeter of dirt on the ground, a feast for the earthworms.

The leaves died, but the trees remained—for a while at least. My body had died, but my soul, my self, the part of me that thought and felt and dreamed remained. But for how long? Until Jay died?

Given who he was and how he lived, that might not be very long in coming. Perhaps I only had until I resolved whatever it was that bound me to the earth, and then I would be the dearly departed instead of merely the _nearly_ departed. I felt very alone, even though Jay was, as always, a presence in my mind. _Was_ I someone's dearly departed? Was I loved, was I missed?

All the questions I could ignore when I was wrapped up in Jay's enormous personality came home to roost, unkind ravens pecking at my insecurities and devouring my peace. Why was _I_ a ghost? Others had died horrible deaths, yet not returned. Or if there were ghosts other than myself, where were they? I had taken on the persona of an_ onryo_, a vengeful ghost from a J-horror movie, out of a sense of fun, yet the role fit me frighteningly well. Had I chosen it, or had it chosen me? The truth was, I had fun being a ghost, at least when people weren't dropping dead. What was going on here? What didn't I understand?

Wait, was that gunfire?

Yes, it was.

'Jay?'

"Yeah," he said in my mind. "Glad you called, because I, uh, I could really use some help here. And you are not gonna believe what I just found."

'What have you done this time? Did you kill all your guys _again_?'

"Uh, kinda. We had a, uh, difference over what should be done about what I found. Look, just come find me, okay? It's awfully dark down here, and the flashlight fell down the crevasse along with Stinky…"

* * *

A/N: Whew! What a week. Sorry for the long interruption in updates, but the holiday sure ate up my time and energy. Thank you all for the reviews, they were lovely and delicious, not to mention non-caloric. As of this writing, it is ten days until the release of The Dark Knight on DVD. Can't wait…


	49. The Batcave

Okay, Gracie was on her way, and _she_ could see in the dark. She would lead me out of here, or find the light switch—there _had_ to be a light switch somewhere—and everything would be all right.

The thing about caves isn't that they're dark, absolutely dark, once you've gone in and gotten away from the entrance. It's that they're _silent_. You don't notice the silence until there isn't any light, and then it's everywhere, all around you, pressing down like a feather pillow, smothering you, blotting you out. It's worse than night, worse than sleep, because even at night, there's light and sound, not oblivion like this, and you can wake up from sleep. All there was here was the occasional plip and plop of water dropping from a stalactite, somewhere far away in the cave. I couldn't even hear myself breathe, because the silence and the dark sucked away the sound. If I were the nervous type, I'd be thinking it would suck away my breath next…

It was a good thing I wasn't the nervous type. I wasn't scared. No, what I was, was _bored_. Bored with sitting around on my ass because if I moved, I might wind up in the drop-off with Stinky (note to myself: in the future, don't shoot the guy holding the flashlight. Take it away from him first. Then it's okay to shoot him.) Bored with the rocks digging into my buttocks, bored with the chilly trickle of sweat down my spine, bored with wondering what might be there in the cave with me, bored with waiting for Grace, bored with…what was that light? Faint yet steady and eerily green, it drifted toward me, and—.

"Since when do you glow?" I demanded of Grace. Greenish-yellow light radiated from her skin, just like you'd get from a glow-in-the-dark sticker. I could see stripes of her face between the hair strands, running down her neck and under her clothes. It was not, unfortunately, strong enough to shine out through her clothes. Too bad.

'Hentai!' she snapped, and then, 'I glow?' she asked, surprised. 'Oh. Okay, I guess I do.'

"Yeah. As in, 'shine little glowworm, glimmer, glimmer'. Not, uh, very observant, are we?"

'Oh, shut up. I had to be able to see in the dark somehow, and this explains it. I bring the light with me.'

"So why haven't I seen you glowing before?"

'Maybe because it just wasn't dark enough. Streetlights, your night light, daylight—.'

"I don't use a nightlight!"

'Yes, you do. You always have a light on when you sleep.'

"That's not because I need a nightlight! I am not afraid of the dark. I _am_ the dark."

'I think you're confusing yourself with Batman now.'

"I am the darkness of the soul, and I only have a light on at night so I can find the goddamn bathroom, because I move so often I can't keep track of where I am."

'Well, A: You are _not_ the darkness of the soul, you are the reminder that humanity is always on the verge of slipping on the banana peel of disaster and prat-falling into the open manhole of anarchy. And B: It's a safe assumption that anybody who has nightmares like yours needs a light on for when they wake up in a cold sweat. So don't bother protesting, because _I know_.'

"Ectoplasmic bitch."

'Psychopathic hentai idiot. It would serve you right if I left you here to rot.'

The only thing you can do after an exchange like that is have a good laugh, so I did, and she joined in. "Oh, sassy girl, I _like_ how you fight. The banana peel of disaster?" I asked. "That's a good one. Maybe even great. I'll have to remember that."

'I think _I_ half-remembered it from somewhere. So. What seems to be the problem, officer?'

"No problems now. Just lead me back up to the entrance without breaking my neck."

'I'd be glad to, if you'll point me in the right direction.'

"Point _you_? How, uh, am I supposed to do that? I don't know it. When the light fell down the crevasse, I got disoriented. If I _knew_ it, I wouldn't _need_ your help. How did you get in?"

'I followed the invisible bungee back to you. Down through the ground, solid rock, and finally into the cave. You said, I quote, "Just come find me, okay?" You didn't tell me to go back to the cave mouth and track you down from there.'

"Alright, alright, I didn't. My mistake. Can you look around and find the light—what are you doing?" The phosphorescent glow was fading from her face and neck, while simultaneously flowing down into her wrists and hands, intensifying there.

'Now that I know about it, I can make it do things. See?' The glow coalesced into two balls of flame which hovered above her hands like…a couple of burning marshmallows that happened to be green with yellow flickers instead of blue and orange. 'I used the marshmallow metaphor earlier today, no fair stealing it.' she chided me.

"What? And what the hell are _those_?"

'Will-o'-wisps. Fox fires. Fairy lights. The ignis fatuus. Ghost candles. Whatever you want to call them. There've been accounts of them for centuries, but not so many lately, probably because all the streetlights drown them out.'

The marshmallows, still burning briskly, their flames about six or nine inches high, floated away from her hands and swooped toward me. I could see her only by their light. "Hey, careful with those." One hovered only a few inches from my face.

'Are they hot?' she asked.

"No." I stripped off a glove and reached out cautiously. It was neither hot nor cold. It felt…like static electricity, only without the zap. The hairs on the back of my hand stood on end, and the skin crawled. "Damn, but this feels weird."

The feeling communicated its way up my arm and down my spine until I felt it all over my body. "Iewwww. Make it stop, okay? It's worse than lice."

'You have lice?' The light retreated. 'Because I know how to treat it if—.'

"Not at the moment, no. Look, we're getting sidetracked here. Can you find the light switch for me?"

'This is a cave. Why should there be a light switch?'

"Take a look around."

Her ghostly flames bobbed and soared around the cave. 'What is all this…?'

"The light switch?" I asked again, pointedly.

'There.' One of the fires stayed at the switch while the other lit my path toward it, and a moment later the cave was illuminated properly. 'Oh. Oh!'

"Uh-huh." Obviously it was his trash pile, given the mess and dilapidation, but this was definitely Batsy's hang out. There was a wooden target with a lot of holes in it and even a couple of batarangs, there were some defective helmets, broken into pieces, a shredded cape, some coiled ropes with hooks on the ends, what had been a computer station, and so on.

"Bruce Wayne is Batman. I should have known, cause of how fast he showed up the night I crashed his party. He was there inside of ten minutes, maybe less."

'And I knew he had to be very rich.'

I nodded. "Which is why I had that, uh, little difference of opinion with my lads. One look at this stuff, and they were talking blackmail. So dull and unimaginative. All my efforts at upgrading the criminals of Gotham have gone flat on me so far. Present company, uh, excepted, of course."

'Gee, thanks.' she said with sarcasm. 'I have to take back all the things I was thinking about Bruce Wayne being an alcoholic. Nobody could do what he does and be a heavy drinker. So what's _his_ story?'

"Wayne?" I racked my brain. "Umm…his parents were murdered when he was a kid. They got the shooter but he got killed in the courthouse, afterward. I remember it was a mob hit."

'So because of that, he now dresses up as a bat to go out and beat up criminals. You know, that's still the stupidest thing I ever heard of.' Grace was wandering around the cavern, looking at the trash. Her lights were either gone or blotted out by the more powerful electric lights.

'His parents wouldn't want him to do that. I was murdered, so I know. If they could, they would say: We don't want revenge. We want you to live your life and be happy. We love you. Seeing you do this to yourself only hurts us more.'

"Nah." I shook my head. "Guys like him—and I am a guy like him, so_ I_ know—don't do things like that for the sake of the person they lost. They do it for _themselves_. He's pissed off so bad that even if he'd killed the guy who shot his parents, it wouldn't be enough. _Nothing_ will ever be enough. And what you said, about the superhero thing being stupid?"

I took a breath and continued. "It's not stupid. It's _ridiculous--_ and as you know, I am all about the ridiculous. Any reasonable society would never even think of letting superheroes operate in their cities, but here's Gotham City with Batman, and Metropolis has Superman and there are more coming every day. And every day it becomes just a little more normal. Gordon deputizing Batsy, that was one small step for a commissioner, one giant leap for superjerks everywhere. Now one of them's got legitimacy. There's no turning back now. I'm in this—and so are you. This ghosting you've been doing, you like it, right? You have fun doing it."

'Yes, I do—when people aren't dying.' Grace admitted.

"You see? You're a natural at it. Doesn't it feel like you've finally found your place in the world? Like there was a role reserved for you, just waiting?"

'…maybe. I was thinking about it earlier.'

"It was the same with me." I said with passion, remembering the night when it all came together for me. Fear Night. The night I realized what I was. The night Grace died. It all fitted, somehow. The whole world was changing--and I_ was_ out there ahead of the rest. I could see the future, and it was going to be _fun_.

'But people like to be a little afraid—that's why they go on roller coaster rides or to horror movies. What I do—what I _try_ to do—is harmless. _You_ kill people.'

"But you, being dead, you, uh, know for a fact it isn't as bad as it seems. Hey, it's fun debating this with you, don't get me wrong, but if we hang around down here much longer, it'll be dark outside and who knows how long it'll take for us to get out? All this stuff isn't going anywhere, and there are things that I need to haul up to the tower."

'All right—if you'll tell me about Fear Night on the way, and what happened when you saw Batman, and became the Joker.'

"It's a deal, sassy girl. Say," I checked my watch. "it's been thirty hours since we made that bet about the dead men at Talia The Warrior Princess' place. Forty two to go. I'm looking forward to winning that look at you in nothing but your naughties."

'Hentai!' With that, we began our ascent back to the surface.


	50. Trying to Connect

Jim Gordon sighed and winced as he barked his shin on the way into the kitchen. With his new position came a proportionately larger salary, so one of the first things he and his wife had done with it was to move to a better neighborhood in a gated community which was theoretically safer. He still wasn't used to the new house, and it didn't help that they hadn't finished unpacking yet. "Good morning." he greeted his family as he slipped into a seat at the table.

"It's afternoon, Dad." Babs looked up from her book. "We had lunch ages ago."

"Then why aren't you in sch—Oh. Right." The mayor had canceled school, against Gordon's advice. "Why'd you let me sleep so late?" he asked his wife, who deposited a steaming mug of coffee in front of him.

"Because you hadn't slept and barely came home for four days, that's why." she chided him. "At least while you're asleep I can send the children in to have a look at you so they don't forget your face. Seriously, Jim. If you don't rest and eat, you're going to collapse, and then you won't be of any use to Gotham City, much less us."

"Barbara, you know I—."

"Yes, I know. We've had this discussion before, and I appreciate how serious the situation is. A few extra hours of down time isn't going to hurt it any—I don't think. Besides, now that you're Commissioner, you don't get paid overtime." She softened her words with a smile. "What do you want with that coffee?"

"Whatever you've got." He smiled in return.

"Did you really make Batman a deputy, Dad?" Jimmy looked over from a game he was playing.

"Yes, I did. We need all the help we can get.", he answered, anticipating his son's next question, but it was his daughter he was looking at. She had only recently begun to round out from late childhood into incipient puberty, a change he wasn't entirely comfortable with. He could parent a girl-child who was still all knobby knees and elbows, but what was he to do with one whose chest was beginning to develop?

If he didn't, who would? The things Rachel Dawes had said a couple of days before came home to him, about the pressures a girl felt, the insecurity, the low self-esteem.

"Babs?" he ventured.

She didn't look up. "Uh-huh…" Her mind was a million miles away from home, that was clear.

"Do you feel a lot of pressure to conform?" Maybe it wasn't the best opening, but it was a start.

She did look up at that. "I don't do drugs, drink or smoke, and I'm not sexually active _at all_. You don't have to worry about me, Dad. I'm okay." She sounded bored and the speech sounded rehearsed.

"That's good to hear, but that isn't what I meant. I know girls are made to think that if they don't look a certain way, that they're worth nothing at all, that being smart or funny or nice aren't as important as having good skin."

Now she really was listening. "You're saying I have bad skin?" Poor choice of examples; Babs was as freckled as a vanilla cupcake with chocolate sprinkles.

"No, no, I'm not! I'm saying that—I'm doing this all wrong, aren't I?" he appealed to his wife.

"You could be doing worse," she assured him, prying waffles out of their toaster. "Keep on slugging."

"Thanks. What's that you're reading?" he lifted Babs' book so he could see the cover.

"Jane Eyre." she told him.

"You enjoying it?" He couldn't remember having read it or what it was about.

"Yeah." Babs now looked deeply suspicious.

"That's good…What I'm trying to say is, you're a great kid. Don't let anybody tell you any different."

She studied him for a long moment before she replied. "Sure, Dad. Whatever." And went back to her book.

* * *

Elsewhere: Rachel was sitting by Harvey's bedside when he opened his good eye, looked up at her, and smiled. "Rachel."

"Yes, I'm here."

"I want—to play a game."

Unsure where this was heading, she agreed. "Sure, Harvey. What do you want to play? I don't know what—."

"Make-believe. I want to play make-believe." His mouth was kinder than it had been for quite a while, and she wanted to encourage as much positivity in him as she could.

"Okay. Where do we start?"

"Let's pretend, just for a while, that it's—forty years from now, and we've been married all that time. Let's look back and remember our lives as if—as if this never happened."

"I don't know if I can play this right, Harvey." A cold shiver of desolation passed over her.

"You can, if you try." he replied. "It's easy."

"Then you should start." She stood up and walked behind the head of the bed, where he couldn't see her.

"All right. Do you remember where we bought your engagement ring? I suggested Tiffany's, but you said no, you wanted something different. So we went to that antique jewelry shop in Old Gotham Town, by the Four Squared."

They had eaten at the Four Squared more than once, and walked by the shop he spoke of. "Yes, I remember. It smelled like dried roses and lavender, and there was an Art Deco tea set in the window."

"That's right. We looked at every diamond in the place, but none of them were beautiful enough for you. So then I saw a sapphire almost as blue as your eyes."

"I remember." She wiped those eyes as unobtrusively as she could.

"Now you go. You remember something. Anything. Our wedding."

"Okay…Um, we were talking about having a big fancy wedding, because you thought that was what I wanted, but I couldn't find a dress I really liked and the first location we booked went out of business. So I was stressing out over having to find another when you suggested we go away for the weekend, to this bed and breakfast upstate, and it was so lovely you said, wasn't it too bad we couldn't have the wedding there? And I said that at that point, I just wanted to get it over with and get on with life. And you said, why not? We're residents of this state. So we found the local justice of the peace and got married. It was just that simple."

Harvey nodded. "Yes, I remember. That was where Sara was conceived."

"Sara?" Rachel asked.

"Our eldest. When we went back a year later for our anniversary…"

They continued on in that vein for some time; how long, Rachel could never remember afterwards. In that time, they bought their first home, complete with a leaky basement. They brought their children into the world, dealt with colic and diaper rash and finding the right preschool. Together they constructed a life they would never lead, complete with minor disasters like root canals, and major events such as finding out their youngest was born deaf. Harvey lost a judgeship only to gain a seat in the state senate while Rachel became Chancellor of Schools. Their eldest son gave them a scare in a drunk-driving accident, but he straightened out after that. In less than an hour, they went through forty years.

Do you remember, do you remember, do you remember, flowed the murmurs as the afternoon died, until Harvey said, "They tell me another stroke like this one will finish me. I'm not too sorry; I've had a good life, all around. Truth is, I always knew you'd outlive me—."

"I don't think I want to play this game anymore." Rachel wiped her face.

"I'm glad of that, because I know you'll be able to cope. You always were the stronger of us, Ray."

"I don't want to play anymore, Harvey!"

"You don't?" he asked. "Well, that's all right. Yes, that's enough."

* * *

A/N: Another busy week. Ah, but three days from now is the release of the DVD! Fresh inspiration, coming soon!


	51. Bruce, Talia, and The Grudge

Talia's door was already open when Bruce arrived—no, it wasn't simply open, it was gone, and two workmen were wrestling a replacement out of a van as he started up the walkway. Slipping past them, he entered the townhouse, to be greeted by the smells of varnish, adhesives, sawdust, and fresh paint while his ears received the sounds of a post-modern quartet scored for an electric drill, a power sander, hammer and hand saw. The living room was undergoing a makeover, it seemed.

Talia's voice lured him into the dining room, where she was speaking to someone on her cell phone. "No, I should prefer them undyed." she said firmly. "And not looking too vulgarly new, it is not to my taste. No silk noil, either, it smells abhorrent. Dupioni would be my preference if you have no tussah. If you wish to earn double, you will have them ready by tonight. Well, you advertise same day service, do you not? Yes, that would be satisfactory. Thank you." She closed the phone, turned around, and saw him. "Beloved!" Smiling, she came to him with her hands out.

"Sorry, I'm a little loaded down." Bruce apologized, setting down a DVD and the beautifully packaged take-out from Ginza. "There. Have I come at a bad time?" he asked, as she captured his hands in hers.

"No hour when you are with me could ever be a bad hour, Beloved." She gazed at him out of the unfathomable depths of her tea-colored eyes.

"But all the mess and the workers—."

"Oh, that is nothing. I awoke this morning and found I loathed everything about the living room. I thought it would amuse me to redecorate, so I did. But come, tell me what brings you to my door?"

"Well, I wondered if you would be interested in dinner and a movie. When I couldn't raise you on your cell phone, I thought I'd take the chance of bringing both along with me in the hopes you'd be up for a night in. Sorry I dropped in unannounced."

"You need no announcing, Beloved. Whilst I live here, this is your home as much as any property you own, for you own my heart entirely. Dinner and a movie, you say?" She picked up the DVD and looked at it.

"Well, since the living room is out of service…" Bruce began, but she interrupted.

"That is not important, for the media room downstairs has not been altered, and we can watch it there as easily as any other place…Ju-On." She read the movie title. "'An eerie tale of a family who is killed in their own home leaving behind an evil spirit lurking in the shadows. When an unknowing homecare worker enters, the spirit is awakened and a terrifying chain of events begins, passing through all who set foot in this dark house.' This is a…horror movie? Beloved, it grieves me to thwart you in anything, but I have never been an admirer of such films, and I fear I would not enjoy it as you would."

"Neither have I—I mean I've never been a big fan of horror movies either, but this one is different. It's more a psychological story, not a slasher film, and it isn't especially gory or graphic. Besides, any guy will tell you the best part of watching a horror movie with a girl is having her grab on to you during the scary parts."

His visit wasn't simply social; he was also doing research on Grace, after the interview with Jonathan Crane the night before. There wasn't much information about the 'jou-gyal pritay' on line or in the library, but luckily the movies Montoya had mentioned were readily available. While not precisely scientfic research, he believed studying what the Joker's companion patterned herself after would yield answers.

Alfred, as resourceful as ever, went shopping and returned with Ringu and Ju-On, an earlier version of The Grudge, which was critically acclaimed to be the better. But his plan was about to fall apart if Talia refused to watch it, for he would be obliged to stay anyway, out of politeness.

"Won't you give it a try with me?" he coaxed. "I brought the deluxe sushi combination for two from the best sushi bar in Gotham, in keeping with the Japanese theme. Plus there's edamame, mochi cakes, sake, tea—everything. A full immersion experience."

"I—If it would please you, Beloved, I will try. But you must sit very close to me, and comfort me."

"With pleasure." he promised.

They ate first, after Talia transferred the food to her own plates and arranged it prettily, making conversation as they enjoyed the fat tuna rolls, the crispy tempura shrimp rolls, the nutty, fresh taste of the edamame, popping the soybeans from the pods directly into their mouths. Watching Talia, Bruce had to wonder why he didn't care for her more than he did. She was beautiful, intelligent, and confident, more so than many of the women he dated. She had poise and charm, too, as much as Rachel did.

There were, he concluded, two things about Talia that put him off. She was too sweet; all sugar, no spice or salt. She gave in to his slightest whim, agreed with everything he said. The other was her devotion. Although she made a joke of calling him 'Beloved', smiling and laughing when she told him all she had was his for the asking, underneath her easy, light manner was the real thing, and that was too much, too soon. She didn't really know him, not enough to love him. (Little did he know how _much_ she knew about him…)

After they finished eating, they went to her media room, where he took the initiative and set things up. "Subs or dubs?" he asked as the main menu loaded. "Do you want to read fast or watch people's mouths moving out of synch with their dialog?"

"Let it be subtitles." Talia decided. "My English is quite good enough to allow me to keep up, and dubbing never sounds entirely correct to my ears."

"Subs it is, then." He chose that option and took a seat beside her on the sofa.

Soon the screen was helpfully explaining how a curse was born of a grudge that formed when someone died in the grip of great anger, and how it accumulated in the place they lived, infecting and killing those who came into contact with it. Those deaths fed the curse/grudge, which then spread, disease-like, to those who came into contact with them, and so on, and so on.

Then the movie truly began, and they watched as a young health-care worker named Rika made a home visit to an elderly dementia patient, only to discover that the fragile, helpless senior had been left alone in a garbage-choked house, where she lay in her own filth. After taking care of her patient's most pressing needs, Rika began the hopeless, thankless task of cleaning up the house, but there were strange noises coming from the upstairs…

Bruce, who hadn't been to a horror movie in years, was struck by how down-to-earth the setting and set-up were. There were no vampires, no sex-obsessed teens, no maniacs with chainsaws, no blood. The noises proved to be coming from a closet which was sealed up from the outside with packing tape, and when she looked inside, the girl found a little boy and his pet cat. Although set in Japan, the themes of child and elder abuse and neglect were universal; the movie, thus far, might have been set anywhere in the world. Then the supernatural intruded upon the story; the ghost (the first _obvious _ghost, as the DVD box revealed that the boy was also spectral), Kayako, made her first appearance.

Bruce was trying to remain detached and analytical as he watched, but the truth was, the movie was _effective_. Talia obviously found it so, for she jumped, squealed, and started at every odd sound and movement. When nothing frightening was on screen, she sat as rigid as a board, clamped to the sofa arm on one side and his arm on the other. However, he was there to learn from the movie, not succumb to it.

Despite her white clothes, Kayako, a wife, a mother, and possibly also an adulteress, was hardly virginal, he decided, mindful of Crane's analysis. Yet she wasn't overtly sexual, nor did she seem driven by a force turned in on itself. Instead, she came across as an embodiment of a rage that was merely purified and liberated by death, not born of death. Surely that anger had existed long before her murder...

And the way she and her son pursued their victims reminded him of a pair of cats playing with a small animal. First they caught it, then they freed it and let it run before catching it again and tossing it around some more. Sooner or later would come the final pounce and the crunch of jaws on a tiny spine.

What Kayako wasn't, however, was a conversationalist. Other than imitating a voice over a cell phone at one point, the only noise she made was a sinister croak, a stark contrast to Grace, who hardly shut up.

At a scant hour and a half, it didn't take long to get through the film, which ended with a haunting montage of empty streets and unpopulated houses. Since the curse only grew with every death, eventually everyone would be consumed by it. The final shot of all was of Kayako in the attic of her house, her eyes closed, her battered, bruised face turned peaceful and pitiable. One could see an eerie beauty in that face, a beauty which was incompatible with life--and then her eyes snapped open, and her strange croak tortured ones' ears...

Then Talia, who had only grown more silent and rigid throughout the moive, suddenly went limp and toppled into his lap. She had fainted.

* * *

Across Gotham City, unbeknownst to them, the police department was taking down survivors' statements after the explosion at the Boom Factory. After the twelfth or fifteenth description of the horrifying _thing_ which had appeared and told them to _get out_ moments before the bombs went off, Montoya hunted down a clip of The Grudge on Youtube using a department laptop, showed it to the current witness, and asked him "Did it look like this?"

And so it was that Grace gained the name that unofficially put her in the ranks of supervillains forever more. From then on, the media, law enforcement and the public alike referred to her as 'The Grudge'. When she learned of it, her comment was that it was a lot better to be called The Grudge than to be called The Snit, The Huff, or The Hissy Fit.

* * *

A/N: EEEEEEEEE!!!!! Tomorrow _tomorrow_ **tomorrow** it's released on DVD!


	52. All Along The Watchtower

This chapter is dedicated to Grace Dark, whose fic And The Rest Is Ancient History is a must read. Grace, one word: shrinkage. ;-)

You can't really tell a story like mine while you're picking your way out of a cave, even when your companion has a pair of nifty floating flaming marshmallows to light the way It's a time when you need to put your full concentration into the task at hand.

"Besides," I told Gracie, "I want to tell it with the proper, uh, ambience, you know. In the tower, with the space heater going, maybe a cup of hot chocolate. Not to mention that it's so cold and damp down here that my balls are trying to crawl back up into my body cavity to get warm."

She snickered. 'Another "involuntary reflex"?'

"Laugh all you want now," I told her, as we emerged into the late afternoon/early evening light, "but when I call in that bet we've got going right now, I'm _not_ gonna leave the room. Get my drift?"

'Better make sure it's a nice warm room,' she riposted. 'Not that I'd mind the cold, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to let my hopes down.'

"Aaaah. Not now with the sultry, okay? I'm _busy_."

'Since when do I listen to what you say?'

I went over to the truck, hot-wired it, and moved it into the cave mouth, out of sight. Then I did the same with the SUV.

'You're sure no one will spot them there?' Grace asked, as I gathered stuff together.

"Reasonably sure. Even if Batsy does swing by the cave, he, uh, he doesn't drive in and out that way, the ground's too uneven and there were no tire marks. This property is like an anthill, with all the caves under it. Plus, there's supposed to be a hard rain tonight, which'll wash away the tracks we made going in—and bring down a lot of leaves to cover up what's left."

I wrapped first the electromagnet coils and then the ladder around my waist and secured the ends to my belt, then hefted the bags I planned on carrying. "Not too bad—oh, hell. I forgot the laptop. Too bad you can't schlep some of this."

'Sorry,' she said cheerily, as we set out through the woods to the more cultivated part of the estate.

I looked at her. She was looking cute in a striped sweater-jacket thing in her favorite colors over a pair of jeans that showed off her legs. The infamous shoes were now pink suede fleece-edged boots. Just the kind of thing a real girl might wear for a walk in the park. "Or maybe it's a good thing you can't, because if you were solid, your wardrobe would weigh a ton."

'Ha!' Her head jerked back and she staggered, clapping her hands to her chest like a wounded gunfighter in an old movie. 'You got me—Mr. Clothes-horse.' She straightened up. 'Like you can talk, with all those different shirts and socks of yours. You do not have a leg to stand on, buddy.'

She made me laugh, as she so often did, for one reason or another. "So, uh, how did a sweet girl like you spook all those people into clearing out? I didn't think you'd really be able to do it. Otherwise, I'd have come up with something else."

'I _thought_ you were being too nice.' she said. 'I'll show you some of what I did, but I'll need you to get a ways ahead of me first.'

"Okay," I shrugged, and I walked twenty more paces before I looked back. "How's this?"

In those few seconds, she'd changed. Literally. From looking sleek and groomed, her hair was now stringy and straggly, and she wore a narrow, short black dress. Her dark stockings had runs in them; I could see blood-encrusted scrapes going down her legs and arms, and she was standing like it was an effort.

She suddenly dropped to the ground, face down, then raised herself on her arms, her hair sweeping the grass. I heard the crunchy, popping wrench of bones breaking as her lower body flopped around and turned backward, so from the waist down she was facing up. Her hands clenched like claws, her head bobbed up, and she growled, 'Get out,' in a low, gritty voice.

"Not bad," I admitted.

'Gettt ouuut!' she repeated—and started scuttling toward me at an incredible pace. 'Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!'

I stood my ground. Right before she would have crashed into, or rather, _through_ me, she stopped. 'You're _supposed_ to run.' she told me, accusingly.

"Um, c'mon? Who are you trying to scare here? I'd give that a good solid 'B'."

'A "B"?' she said, sounding offended while she stood up and changed back to normal. 'Why only a "B"?'

"The bit where your legs turned backward was a little too 'Exorcist'." I told her. "I had to take off points for that. But the sound effects were A-plus, and I liked how fast you were. It's hard to, uh, see how people in a movie get so _scared_ of something they could outrun."

'What would you suggest instead of the backward legs thing?' she asked, as we began to walk again.

"Could you, uh, sprout some more legs, maybe? Fuzzy tarantula ones, or like scorpion's legs?"

'I don't see why not, but let me practice first. That wasn't the only thing I did to scare them, but we really need to be indoors where there's an upstairs to get the full effect.'

"An indoors with an upstairs, huh? How about…that?" I swept my arm in a gesture encompassing the folly and its surroundings.

'Oh. Oh, _wow_.' Grace stopped to take it in.

I was glad we'd gotten there while there was still sunlight, because I knew it was an impressive sight. The rocky hillside to the left of the waterfall was planted with seasonal flowers, gold and purple, yellow and orange, and the trees blazed above them. The waterfall didn't go straight down to the little lake, but cascaded over rocks on the way down. The tower looked like it needed a princess with one of those upside-down ice cream cone hats hanging out of a window, and the forest continued behind and on the other side of it. "Will that do?"

'Just about…Race you!' She took off.

"What? Hey, no fair, ghost girl! You're not carrying anything and you aren't solid either."

She waited for me at the foot of the tower, where a locked gate barred the way. "What, can't you, uh, pass through cold iron or something?"

'Sure I can. No problem.' She stepped in without hesitation. 'I'm just waiting for your sorry ass to catch up.'

"Let's not go getting personal now…" I unlocked the gate and reached around to lock it again once I was in. I had substituted my own locks months before, and mine were much better. If/when Batsy or his designated representative tried to get in, they would need to go for a blowtorch rather than a bolt cutter. It looked just as real from the inside, all flagstone floors and rough-hewn stone walls. We climbed two flights of spiraling stairs up to where they stopped.

'Houston, we have a problem.' Gracie pronounced, looking up at the locked trapdoor well above our heads. A few feet of metal staircase hung down from it, but out of reach.

"Nope. The rest of the stairs are in storage somewhere, I'm guessing, but not to worry, I brought my own."

Putting down the laptop and my bags, I uncoiled the rope ladder from around my waist and attached the hooks to it. Swinging the hook end above my head, I caught on the bottom step of the metal stairs, and climbed up. Grace rose off the floor to hang in the air next to me.

"This lock here, this is a dummy. It's there for show. See?" I showed her how the screws were loose. "That way it'll look locked even when I'm at home. The real lock is on the inside, and I'm the only one who knows about it." Shoving on the trapdoor, I demonstrated that it would not budge. Then I uncoiled the electromagnet and plugged it into the handy socket not six inches from the trapdoor, and used it to draw the bolts from the inside, right through the wood. Now when I pushed, it swung up easily, and I stepped up onto the third floor of Wayne's Folly.

…Or maybe I should call it Batsy's Belfry instead. After all, it was a bell tower. And if anybody had bats in their belfry, it was him. Well, me too. Although Grace was more like a specter in my skull, a phantom in my pants, a ghost in my gonads…

'I _heard_ that.' said my sassy girl. 'Hentai!' She did like to get in the last word.

* * *

A/N: The bell tower described in this chapter is a real place, although I am imagining it a little differently. If you look up Longwood Gardens, then use their search to find the chimes tower, then go to the west gardens heading there's a great picture of it about two-thirds of the way down. I have wanted to live there since I was about eleven.


	53. Transfigured and Transformed

A/N: You may have noticed (or you may not) that I revised this story's description to something I hope better suits its tone. I welcome comments on the change and suggestions for its improvement. Does it emphasize Grace too much?

* * *

'How did you ever think of this place?' I asked, surveying the tower room. In the center of the ceiling was the electronic carillon, which had replaced the bells. Six high, arching windows ringed the wall, reaching from waist height almost to the ceiling. I could see the entire estate from there; the site of the manor which was being rebuilt, the formal gardens, the greenhouses, the lakes, and even the road beyond.

"I was holed up in a church basement for nearly a week once," he explained, unlocking a heavy-duty plastic storage chest, "and the only thing I had to read, outside of the bibles and religious stuff, was this guidebook to the Stately Homes of Gotham City, from something like 1964. The way the author wrote made me want to spew, but his book turned out to be, uh, an unexpectedly val-u-able little resource.

"Twice a week these places are open to the public, so the unwashed can see how the silver spoon crowd lives, and the guide told all about what to be sure and see, like the Picasso and the heirloom silver. It even gave maps of the grounds and the layout of the houses. Talk about _asking_ to be ripped off! There's been several times I've taken advantage of that little book, and when Batsy burned down his house, I thought of this." He gestured around the room.

'I have to admit this is a sweet setup,' I told him. While the windows were unglazed, there were heavy wooden shutters to close out the wind and weather. He hadn't installed those; the cracked paint and worn catches told me they were at least as old as the book he spoke of. The wiring was new, though, as was the chest he was rummaging in. 'Does the carillon still work?'

"Nah. I disconnected it; deafness is not my idea of fun." He brought out a power strip with a surge protector and plugged it in; next came a space heater and a hot-plate. A pot and a kettle followed that, and on their heels, a sleeping bag.

'Why, Jay!' I exclaimed, pretending to be surprised. 'You're so well prepared—but you never told me you were a boy scout!'

He played along (I could tell from his thoughts that he didn't remember). "They taught me, uh, really important life skills, like uh, knot tying—and the use of pocket knives. Not to mention gutting, cleaning and skinning…"

'You ought to be doing promotional appearances for them.' I said, with feigned admiration.

"They keep begging me, but somehow I just can't find the time….Uh, sorry about there being only one sleeping bag, but it isn't as if you take up a lot of space."

'I'll forgive you for it—this time. But you're lucky I'm not flesh and blood in more ways than one.'

I moved to look over his shoulder at what else might be in the chest. Nothing that couldn't be brought up on a rope ladder, of course. There were several packages of the kind of food that could be made with boiling water: ramen noodles, instant oatmeal, and hot chocolate, a mug, a bowl, and a plate, plus a few utensils. Then a couple of towels—and a lot of money.

"One of my stashes," he explained. "A quarter mil. What do mean, I'm lucky you're not real?"

'Because there's no bathroom here that I can see.'

"Ah!" He beamed at me mischievously. "See those two buckets?" He pointed across the room. "The blue one's for clean water, and the yellow one's for everything else!"

* * *

Once the shutters were closed and the space heater was glowing, the tower room was almost cozy, in an Addams Family kind of way, given that its occupants were a deranged clown and a dead girl. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling gave off all the light it could, and Jay had a pot of (clean) water boiling on the hot plate, and he was rummaging in one of the bags he'd brought from the SUV.

Bringing out the broccoli and chicken breast, he turned to me and said, "Okay, sassy girl. You're gonna have to tell me what the hell to do with this, and if you get too complicated or I don't like it when it's done, it's going out the window."

Fortunately I'd advised him to get stuff that was already cut up and ready to cook. 'Dump the broccoli in the water and throw in one of the seasoning packets from a thing of ramen. Give it two minutes, then throw in the chicken. Did you bring the sriracha sauce, too?' It wouldn't be what I would call good food, but it should at least be edible and nutritious.

"You mean this stuff?" He brought out the familiar bottle with the cock (as in rooster) on the label.

'Yes. Put in no more than three or four drops to begin with, when the chicken goes in.'

"Why? What is it?" He broke the seal and squeezed a blob out on his finger.

'Be careful!' I pleaded, but it was too late. He'd stuck it in his mouth.

"Aaaaaaaaaooooowww!" He hawked, spat, swore, and grabbed for the fresh water bucket in desperation.

'Not water, it only spreads the fire. Bread or beer.' I advised him.

He had a six pack in his bag, so he grabbed one and drank half of it before he replied. "Damn, what's in that stuff? Rocket fuel?"

'I was about to tell you it makes tabasco sauce seem like ketchup. The active ingredients are garlic and chili peppers, but the rule with chili peppers is that the smaller they are, the hotter they bite. Jalapeno peppers are about the size of a finger, and I think the peppers in sriracha sauce are about the size of a finger_nail_.'

While I spoke, he chugged the rest of his beer. The sauce had made him break out in a sweat, which meant his make-up was starting to melt and slide off his face. "Huh. Y'know, I bet this stuff would hurt a lot if you got some in a cut--or in your eyes." He looked at the bottle speculatively.

'You don't even need a cut. If you leave it on too long, it'll raise blisters--and you _don't_ want to let it come into contact with any mucous membranes anywhere on the body, so wash your hands carefully before you handle your...reflexes, voluntary or otherwise, next.'

"Good, uh, advice, but that wasn't what I was thinking about. You know how I like to come up with simple and cheap ways of, uh, committing mayhem—and I can think of some _fun_ things to do with this." He grinned evilly at the bottle of sauce.

'Um, yes, and I can see these all too clearly in your mind.' Like the business with the cheese grater—and the ice pick—and ugh, ugh, _no_, the _ginger-beer_ trick, which was much too much like the Pudding Incident. 'But I think sriracha sauce should be saved only for those who are very, very guilty, like the mastermind behind it all. It's too…good to waste.'

Smiling at me fondly, an effect which was ruined by the disintegrating make-up, he shook his head and said, "Gracie, Gracie, _what_ am I going to do with you and your _scruples_? Never mind. What was the first thing that goes into the pot?"

'The broccoli.' I told him.

"You know," he said, when the food was ready—and it smelled better than I expected—" this stuff isn't, uh, it isn't half bad. Nothing to compare to the Flower of Bangkok, but I'm not choking on it. I've eaten better these last few days than I have in—uh, in a while."

'Somebody seems to have done a decent job of keeping you fed the first twenty or so years of your life.' I commented, watching him. 'You are over six feet tall, after all, and apart from the scurvy you seem healthy. That argues for good nutrition while you were growing up.'

"I don't remember a thing about it," he shrugged. "What about you?"

'Me? No. Except…' Something about the orangey glow of the space heater, and the way he was sitting was familiar. 'Silver. I remember watching someone work with silver, using hand tools. Or maybe I'm remembering a documentary off of public television. What about your story? I'd much rather hear about fear night.'

"Okay—let me get the kettle on…" He dipped up a few cups of water from the clean bucket, and put it on to get hot. "Let's see, I told you about how I'd planned to shake down the Chechen's collectors, but what I didn't tell you was that I was just another chickenshit hood back then—okay, so I had all the same basic components, but I never figured out what to _do_ with them. I mean, I used to _worry_ about getting caught!" He laughed. "But that was before. Before Fear Night.

"It all just came too, uh, too _easy_. Much too easy. After a while, you can read mob guys and other hoods like a book. You know who's gonna, uh, _squeal_, which one'll fight when he's cornered, which one'll cave, which one's a p_syyyy_cho—and you pick your marks by what you read. I'd have a little fun here, pick up some easy cash there—but what was the _point_ of it all? It got so bad, sometimes I'd cut myself, just to feel _something_."

He picked up his mug and took two packets of hot chocolate mix from a box. "One packet isn't enough for a whole mug, it's like drinking dishwater…" Shaking them down like a thermometer first, he ripped them open and tapped the contents into the waiting cup. "Then it all changed. I don't want to go giving you flashbacks again—."

'I don't think that will happen.'

"No? Okay. The fear gas came up from the sewers, clouds of steam everywhere, and all around me the Narrows was going on one _mother_ of a bad acid trip. But what about me? What was happening to me, while people were screaming and running?

"The answer: not a whole lot."

'I know I read once, something about how Hell is empty and all the demons are here.' I put in.

"Yeah," he nodded. "That's about right. Afterwards, people talked about how the world had turned to Hell, full of demons and fire and everything ugly—well, all I can say is that finally they were on the same page as me. But there was a riot going on, and there's hardly anything I like better than a good riot, so I joined in for all I was worth. I grabbed a crowbar and started bashing.

"Events, uh, kinda swept me along to the police barricade blocking Merrell. I got caught there for oh, five minutes. When they fired first, it wasn't a warning shot—it was straight into the crowd. I wound up wearing the head of the guy in front of me all over my shirt—he just exploded into strawberry jam and splinters of bone. I had to 'wash that man right outta my hair', too, later!" He sang the last phrase, which I remembered from an old shampoo commercial on TV Land.

"So I ducked down this alleyway and ended up outside of Vaccaro's Authentic Old-World Bakery. It was right off the Pinckney Drawbridge ramp, but of course they had pulled it up. We were sealed in like bugs in a killing jar.

"That was when _it_ happened. When it all started making sense. When the Batman came out of the night… He was the Angel of Death. He was… a gargoyle come down off a cathedral, the Thing that lurks under the bed at night. He was Dracula. He was twelve feet tall with a wingspan of seventeen, no, bigger. You know the movie Fantasia?"

I nodded.

"Then you know the part with the demon on top of the mountain, the demon that's part of the mountain. That was the Batman…and I was an _ant_. He would just have passed me by like a tornado that takes out one tree but leaves the next standing, but I was—I was so, uh, _offended_ that I _had_ to make him stop. I _had_ to make him notice me."

If I had breath, I would have held it, so as not to break his concentration. The kettle was sending out a great plume of steam, much like the sewers had on Fear Night, but he wasn't paying attention. His make-up had almost all washed off from sweat, making him more a fallen, damaged angel than ever, in this stone tower which was like a medieval chapel.

"So I went for his head with the crowbar, and I connected. I felt the impact travel all down my arm—and I could tell I rang his bell for him, by the way he staggered. He was human, after all, only a man, and I was nearly disappointed. But then he spun and laid one on my chin, and the world as it was went supernova behind my eyelids like a million fireworks—and I _saw_.

"I saw a new world full of colors like a box of new crayons, all fresh, unbroken, not even peeled down. It was weird and flat, like an illustration, and then it wasn't. I saw him, the Ultimate Policeman, all serious in his black and grey, and I saw me, the Ultimate Clown, all happy happy colors, and we were fighting, upstairs and down and all around Gotham City, over the rooftops and under the streets, with giant magnifying glasses and typewriters and the Dish ran away with the Spoon."

He was weaving a picture with his hands in the air. "There were huge question marks, and a redheaded _babe_ dressed all in leaves, a penguin that talked and a scarecrow that walked, a _pretty_pretty kitty with a_ nasty_ whip, and _so_ many others. It only lasted a moment, my vision, I mean—but it went on _forever_. And I knew. I _knew_ who I was.

"**I was the Joker**. And did it_ ever_ make me _smile_."

* * *

A/N: Whew! I think I have to collapse now…


	54. The Endless

Disclaimer: I don't own The Endless, who were created by Neil Gaiman (Ilen Magian is an anagram of his name) and are owned by DC. Max Schreck and his department store were in Batman Returns, and I don't own them either.

* * *

"Talia?" His girlfriend had gone as pale as paper. Bruce had a vague idea that what you were supposed to do for someone who had passed out was to put their head down between their knees to make the blood return to their head, but if he did that, she was likely to slide off the sofa. He patted her face instead. When she did not respond, he made her as comfortable as he could, then went to the nearest bathroom and soaked a hand towel in cold water.

Returning to her side, he put the wet cloth on her forehead, and was rewarded by a slight flinch. "Oh." she said a moment later, opening her eyes. "Oh…how childish of me. I fear I have ruined the evening. Forgive me, Beloved."

"Hey, if anyone should be asking for forgiveness, it's me. You weren't kidding when you said you weren't a fan of horror movies, were you?"

She sat up, removing the cloth from her head and holding it in her lap. "I was brought up to believe most films were foolish and trivial, and horror films even more so."

"Really? That's a shame. It's like you never had the measles when you were growing up—now you've got no immunity to them. And then I go and expose you to a super-contagious person. I mean, this film, it pulled out all the stops. It had me going, too."

"Truly, Beloved? Are you certain you are not saying so to make me feel better?" She asked it with an impish smile that reminded him why he liked her.

"Honestly, it was one hell of a spooky movie." So he was exaggerating, so what? He felt bad about springing Ju-On on her—but he wished now that she had a little more backbone. She never stood up for herself; there was no fight in her, at least where he was concerned.

Upstairs, the doorbell rang. "My drapes!" she exclaimed. "Forgive me. I must let them in."

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked as she sprang to her feet.

"I might have been momentarily overcome, but I am not such a feeble creature as that!" she tossed back at him over her shoulder as she left the room.

Alone in Talia's media room for the first time, Bruce took a look around. Media apparently included books; on a lower shelf of the coffee table was a volume with a purple leather cover lettered in gold. He picked it up. It looked like a well-cared-for antique. The Endless, by Ilen Magian, he read. He had never heard of that author. Illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. He _had_ heard of Beardsley, a Victorian artist who used some very graphic images in his work.

Bruce sat back on the sofa and opened the book, more because it was something to do than out of any real interest, but certain books have the ability to draw readers in, and it seemed The Endless was one of those. Soon he was wrapped up in it—and rapt about it.

The Endless, according to Magian, were a family of seven immortal siblings. Not gods, because gods (with a small g, not a large G) require worship, and die off without it, but anthropomorphic personifications, or, to put it into words that didn't require sawing up to fit into one's mouth, concepts given human form. Something like how Santa Claus was the personification of generosity and indulgence, in other words.

These siblings were more serious. Each of them got his, her or its own chapter, but Magian had listed them in a shorter form first.

Destiny was the eldest, who appeared as an eyeless man chained to an enormous book. Then came Death. Rather than the classic Grim Reaper, a skeleton clad in robes, Death was a very attractive and cheerful girl in her late teens who affected Egyptian eye make-up and jewelry. The next sibling was Dream, a young-appearing man with poetical looks.

Then came Desire, who was a hermaphrodite. Beardsley had really gone to town with that particular illustration, and Bruce turned the page quickly. Destruction was next, a big burly man, and then Despair, an ugly, toad-like woman who gouged at her own flesh with a barbed hook—a good metaphor. The last and youngest was Delirium, a very young girl whose clothes and hair were disheveled and disordered as her mind.

Was this book mythology or fantasy? Had Magian made it all up, or was there a real history of the Endless behind it. He was glancing over the section about the Endless' children—apparently Dream was the Morpheus of Greek legend, and the father of Orpheus—when Talia returned.

"I am sorry I left you for so long, Beloved, and sorrier still that these tiresome people will command my attention for some little time."

"I guess you're kicking me out, then." Bruce stood up.

"Never—but I fear you will grow bored."

"That's okay." Gordon would be expecting him, come nightfall. "Do you mind if I borrow this?" He held up The Endless.

"Of cour—Oh." Her face grew worried. "If it were any other thing I possess, I would say: take it, and let there be no talk of borrowing, it is yours. But that is a most rare tome which I purchased as a gift for one who has desired it for many years. I am sorrowful beyond words, Beloved."

"Hey, I understand." He handed the book to her. "I'm glad I had a chance to glance at it, in that case." He headed for the stairs, and she followed him. About three-quarters of the way up, he saw something that made him pause. "Talia—do you have that wet towel?"

"Yes. Why?"

"There's a spot of paint or something—." He took the towel and swiped at the glob, but it was more solid than he had supposed. "It's blood. Blood and a little piece of meat—I think it's the very tip of somebody's finger." He held it up. "How did—?"

She blinked, and then answered, too easily, too naturally. "I know what happened. One of the workmen had an accident with a—a band saw, I think it was? Or was it some other sort of saw? He had to go to the hospital for stitches."

Talia was lying. He could tell. She was very good at it, but she had lied. "Do you think I ought to call them and tell them it has been found, Beloved?" she asked, ingenuously. "I hardly think such a tiny fragment could be reattached, the more so because it has dried out from being on the floor all day."

"Talia, why are you—?" His phone beeped at him; a text message had just come in. Taking it out, he saw it was from Alfred. _Explosion riverfront suspect Joker_, it read. "Damn. I've got to go…" He hurried out.

Talia stood at her brand new door for a very long time after he drove away, her face pensive and unreadable.

* * *

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Gotham City, Batman and the Gotham City police department were about to get their first big break.

Max Schreck, owner and president of the last chain of independent department stores in the Gotham City area, looked down at the seething shoppers on the sales floor and smiled. A striking-looking man in his fifties with a leonine mane of white hair and glacial eyes, he possessed bone structure too fine for him to be labeled ugly, yet he was too odd looking to be called handsome. Despite the economy (and despite a seven percent decrease from sales that month last year) profits were up two percent, and it was all thanks to his willingness to try new techniques and technologies.

Losses due to shoplifting had been reduced by ninety-five percent over the last quarter, and as they were heading into the Christmas season, when sales and thefts both spiked, he anticipated only more of the same. Simply slashing prices and then slashing them again wouldn't fix the economy. He could see that even if other retailers couldn't. Something new, something bold had to be done to save the bottom line from going into the red, and he had done it.

On every floor, in several different locations in every Schreck's Department store now stood a massive VDT which showed a variety of video clips, each five to sixty seconds long, ranging from seasonal landscapes and scenes to catwalk fashion shows to nature programming to spokes-models explaining the current and future predicted hot looks and colors and back again, the screens were the epitome of modern advertainment.

But they served another function, because underneath and behind the clips were other clips and messages, all aimed at stopping shoplifters. Sobering, even harrowing clips of shoplifters being apprehended, arrested, humiliated, accompanied by captions such as: Don't do it. They're watching you. They're on to you. They'll catch you. You can't escape. And it worked. Shoplifting had dropped dramatically from day one.

When Admospherics, Ltd. had come to him with their proposal…Well, he had to admit he didn't understand exactly how it worked, except that unlike the old experiment in subliminal advertising, it wasn't just one frame out of hundreds. This way of doing it ran continuously. The Admospherics people had explained a lot about negative space, and how when you stared at a picture of an American flag printed in orange and green for a while, then looked at a white wall, you saw the flag in normal colors. There was also something about those 'Magic Eye' pictures that had been a big fad about fifteen, twenty years ago. But that was why they were the ones coming to him for money rather than the other way around.

It was thoroughly above board and ethical, too. After all, they weren't influencing anyone into, say, spending money they didn't want to or buying a particular product, (although in the future…) they were only preventing shoplifting, which was illegal. It was practically a public service.

Although—not that this proved anything, because Gotham City had more than its fair share of lunatics—it did seem as though a disproportionate—yes, that was the word, disproportionate number of them were choosing to have their psychotic breaks in Schreck's Department Stores. About one a week, on average, which was why he hadn't started firing the security guards. But it couldn't possibly have any connection to the Admospherics videos. It couldn't.

At that moment, proving that Destiny has a fine sense for dramatic timing as well as a taste for irony, the girl started screaming…


	55. Heroes At Work

A/N: To clear up what's going on in this chapter Although they're not connected to the mastermind, a company called Admospherics, LTD has discovered a way of putting subliminal messages into videos that works in the same way that the suicide messages do. They produced the anti-shoplifting messages for Schreck's, messages which are very threatening--'They're after you. They're going to catch you.' and so on.

If a person who's already paranoid is exposed to those messages, they melt down and have a psychotic episode.

If someone who has been primed to commit suicide comes into contact with the messages, they try to commit suicide. That's what's happening in this chapter. Once Batman and the Gotham City Police Department find out about the messages, they will be on their way to blocking them.

* * *

"What do we have here?" Gordon asked as he got out of the cruiser in front of Schreck's Department Store, a venerable Grand Dame of a building dating back to the Edwardian era. Among the newer structures and edifices, she looked like a grandmother dressed for the opera amid a younger generation dressed for a rave.

His people had already cleared a wide section of the street and set up floodlights, aiming them at the water tank on the roof. The building was five stories high, but the tank rose at least another story above that. "Someone said there was a hostage situation?"

"No, sir. That was a miscommunication, because the officer responding called for a negotiator. There's a thirteen year old girl up on top that tank, threatening to jump." Byrd told him. "Her name's Jennifer Snow—and she's on the Risk List." That was the name the department had given to the girls from the Mercier Modeling Bureau files. The Risk List had been released to the media, so no could say they were not informed.

"What happened?" The commissioner was not about to waste time asking why she hadn't been watched more carefully.

"As far as we can tell, she was shopping with her mother and her younger brother. She was waiting while her mother was busy in the dressing room with the boy when she screamed and ran. She took the escalators to the rooftop café, and from there she climbed the maintenance ladders to the top of the tank. She's standing on the wrong side of the railing, scared out of her head and screaming for everyone to keep away."

"Binoculars." Gordon ordered, and Byrd handed him a pair. Gotham City's commissioner swept the water tank with his enhanced vision, found the slight figure of Jennifer Snow, and focused on her. She wore a red coat, and her short, mouse-colored hair was cut in a feathery pixie style. The wind toyed with those silky, pale strands, whipping them about one moment, then tousling them as if with affectionate fingers the next. Her face was contorted with terror, and she gripped the railing with all her strength. He could see that she was trembling. Was it out of fear? Was it fatigue, or was she shaking with cold? Perhaps it was all three.

"Where's the fire department?" Gordon asked, thinking of their safety nets.

"Fighting a blaze over in the Gotham University dorms. They say they'll be here as soon as they can."

"Damn it!" Gordon swore. "What are we _doing_ to save this girl?"

"We have a trained negotiator up there trying to talk her down." Byrd defended.

"Not good enough." Gordon shoved the glasses back into Byrd's hands and strode into the store. From the outside, Schreck's strove to maintain the old traditional look, but inside it was pure twenty-first century, natural materials married to cyber-age design, slick and organic at the same time, with huge video walls showing a time lapse film of a forest changing from her summer green dress to fall's rich brocade. "Which way is the elevator?"

It seemed to take a lifetime to get to the roof. More than long enough for Jennifer Snow's life to end. But eventually the doors opened to reveal the famous cast-iron and glass Orangerie Café, all Art Nouveau curves and swirls.

At that hour, they should have been serving dinner. Instead it was cleared of everyone but security guards, a few police officers, and Maximillian Schreck himself. The billionaire owner began, "Ah, Commissioner—.", but Gordon stormed on past in his haste to get to the water tank.

Looking at the narrow ladder Jennifer Snow had to have climbed to get to the top, Gordon paused. Surely there were enough people milling around up there. He could hear feet clanging on the metal, voices raised to send reassuring messages. Instead he stepped around to the street side, where a woman and a boy no older than his Jimmy huddled, with two of his officers, out of the wind. Icy tears burned on the faces of woman and boy.

"Are you Jennifer's mother?" he asked the woman.

She nodded, swiping at her eyes. "I don't know—I don't—I wanted to cheer her up, so, so I—."

"It's all right, Mrs. Snow. We'll save your girl. Is there something everyone calls her, like Jen or Jenny?" Gordon smiled as genially as he could manage.

"Jen. She wants to be called Jen, now that she's a teenager." Mrs. Snow told him.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Jen? Jen Snow? Can you hear me?"

"Who—who are you?" A thin, quavering, young voice floated back to him. "Keep away from me! I'll let go before I'll let them get me!"

"I'm a friend, Jen. I'm here to help you. I don't want you to get hurt."

Whatever answer she might have made was drowned out by an angry shout from above. "Who the hell is that?" He didn't recognize the voice, but the wind and distance distorted sound.

"It's Jim Gordon." he called back, not wanting to alienate the girl with his title. She sounded paranoid.

"Oh. Sorry, sir."

"Can you still hear me, Jenny?" he called. "I'm nowhere near you, sweetheart. I'm staying away. I can't even see you. Are you still there?"

"Yes." came her reply.

"Can you tell me what's wrong? I want to understand what's going on."

"They know—they know what I did, and they're after me!" she shrieked. "Keep away, keep away!"

"I will stay away, and I want everybody else to keep back too. Do you hear me? Jen is just a young girl. I don't know what she did, but she's not in any trouble for it." He tried to put as much authority into it as he could.

Backing away from the tower's shelter, he moved to a place where he could see Jennifer Snow silhouetted against the high-rise next door. "Jen, look to your right, down on the roof. Can you see me? I'm the man waving at you." He raised his hand and swung vigorously.

"Yes!"

"Good. Look, I promise I won't let them get you. Whatever you did, I promise you won't be punished, and nothing bad will happen to you. Aren't you cold and tired, Jen? If you come down, you can rest and have hot chocolate in the café with me and your mom and your brother. Just step back inside the railing, and it'll be all right, I promise. I won't let anybody get you."

She stood still, but he could sense a shift. She was listening. His persuasion was working. She shifted her grip, swung one leg back over the rail—and _slipped_.

"NO!" Gordon shouted, but it was too late. She was falling…

…yet as she fell, a dark shape blotted out part of the sky to swoop in on ragged-looking wings and snatch her up to fly away with her—but no, it wasn't a colossal raptor, some night predator of prodigious size, it was a man. Batman. A cheer went up from the roof and the street below as Gotham City finally saw her hero act as a hero should act: saving the day, saving the girl.

* * *

Batman winced. The movies made it look so _easy_. However, catching a hundred pound weight that was falling at thirty-two feet per second per second with one hand while holding on to his line with the other was difficult and painful. He would be lucky if he hadn't cracked a rib. Then add in the fact that the weight was alive and literally kicking and screaming, and those factors squared the difficulty.

Seeing a parapet coming at him, he raised both legs and shoved back before they crashed into it. As they swung back toward the department store, he triggered the reel-up, then let go so they tumbled on the roof top, he shielding her with his own body, and that just plain _hurt_. Dazed for a moment, he let the girl go. She sat up and immediately began to cry noisy tears, her mouth wabbling like that of the infant she had once been.

Gordon rushed over to the girl, catching her up in both arms. "Are you all right? It's okay, Jen. Everything's going to be okay."

A moment later, a woman skidded to a halt by them, falling on her knees in her haste to get there. "Jen—oh, Jen, oh, thank God you're all right, baby…" she wept into the girl's shoulder. "Thank you, Batman, thank you!"

Other people took over from there, and Gordon helped him to his feet. "You all right?" the commissioner asked his friend and newest deputy. "Well done." he replied at Batman's nod.

"What happened?" asked the masked crimefighter.

"I've no idea. Her name is Jennifer Snow. She's one of the girls on the Risk List. All I know is that she was shopping here with her mother when something triggered her into coming up here and threatening to throw herself off the water tower."

"There are no other reports of attempted suicides." Batman rasped. "So the trigger must be something in the store."

"I agree. If you're up to it after that stunt, I want you to look into it--you have full authority. Take who you need. Go through the store with a fine tooth comb. If Schreck objects, threaten him with the media. Being uncooperative would make for very bad publicity. Right now, I have a promise to keep to Jen involving hot chocolate."

* * *

A/N: A second chapter without Jay and Grace? Sorry, it just didn't work out any differently. They'll be back next chapter. I promise.


	56. The Gift

Movie film runs at the rate of twenty-four frames a second. Television and video do the equivalent, producing twenty-four slightly different images per second to produce an illusion of unbroken movement in real time. Security cameras, on the other hand, don't need quite that degree of smoothness, because at any given time, not much is happening. A sixteen-hour day's worth of security video recorded in real time would make a very, very boring movie.

So, especially in older systems, a lot of security cameras took the equivalent of six frames per second. When played back, the effect was that of bad, jerky stop-motion animation. Schreck's had security cameras all over the place, more of them in the areas where valuable and highly desirable items were sold, such as jewelry and electronics, and fewer in places where the nature of the merchandise made it difficult to shoplift, such as the furniture department. No one had as yet succeeded in concealing a three-piece leather sectional under their coat and walking out with it, but a brand-new iPod was another story.

Nearly every step Jennifer Snow took from the moment she walked in the door had been seen by an electronic eye and recorded, and that was what Batman was watching. He saw her try several scents at the perfume counter, gaze longingly at the Juicy Couture leather jackets, keeping her hands behind her back in the classic look-but-don't-touch store manners every well brought up child learned, and hold earrings up against the side of her face. Trailing behind her mother as that lady browsed in the kitchen and cookware department, Jen sampled hand-dipped chocolate candies made on the spot to advertise a chocolate-tempering machine, then ran to prevent her little brother from climbing up a shelving unit full of expensive glassware. All very normal, at least so far.

Then the family went to the children's clothing department. Mrs. Snow chose half a dozen garments for her son and took him into the dressing room while Jennifer waited. The girl spoke briefly to a woman with a very young baby, letting the little one curl its tiny hand around her finger. Once the mother and child moved on, Jennifer turned her attention to the video wall screen, and that was where she stayed for several minutes, almost motionless. Then she began to get edgy, shifting from foot to foot, darting glances left and right.

So intent was the costumed adventurer on the teen that he almost missed what he was looking for, but there, only for an eye-blink, was an image so bizarre, so out-of-context…

A person with his/her head thrown back in anguish, screaming silently as security officers cuffed his/her hands, and the words 'They'll catch you.' superimposed upon it.

"Stop," Batman ordered. "Back it up. What was that?"

* * *

I stopped, realizing my chest was heaving and my heart pounding. Not to mention that I was also sweating so hard my makeup was dripping into my eyes, so I wiped my sleeve over my brow. I felt…more naked than naked. I had spilled out my whole story, unedited, there was nothing held back. I'd never told anybody that story before--okay, that wasn't entirely true. There were a couple of guys I had told, in a taunting way, just before I killed them. This was the first time I'd told anybody who really mattered.

_Don't you dare go derisive on me, Gracie, or I'll come up with some way of making you suffer. I like you sassy but there are some places you **just don't want to go**_. Sometimes I hated her for what she knew about me.

'I'm not laughing.' she said, somberly. She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. 'No derision here. And you don't have to worry about me taking advantage of what I know—or of anything else. I need you, you see. Not simply because my life is linked to yours, but because without you, all the questions would tear me into shreds.'

"The questions?" I asked.

She nodded. 'Who was I, why am I a ghost, why can't I remember my life, did I have a family, was I loved, am I missed, what about heaven and hell, did God forget about me or reject me—you keep all those questions at bay. Whether I'm fighting with you, flirting with you or fussing over you, none of those can bother me, as long as you're there. Even just that little time I was alone up in the woods while you were down in the cave, I was lost. Without you, there is no me.'

I stared at her. The space heater gave off more light than the bulb hanging from the ceiling, and by its sizzling glow, I could make out about a third of her face. Her eyes were lost in shadow and then of course there was her hair, but I could see the side of her face and her cheek down to her chin, plus about half her nose and mouth.

She had that 'beestung lips' thing going, and alive or dead I couldn't see her as someone who would go for collagen injections or whatever cosmetic surgeons do to puff lips up, so it was either natural or else her killer had pasted her a good one right square on the kisser, making her mouth swell up. I could see what might be a split in her lower lip, but it might just be a crease.

How much of someone's face do you need to see to know if she's beautiful or not? Then, too, I could see the swell of her breasts under her blouse, and that started to stir the unconscious reflex again. I looked away. Damn it all, why did she have to become visible without also being tangible?

It complicated this relationship. If she were flesh and blood, if I could only lay her a few times, maybe take her away for a dirty weekend somewhere, and get this attraction out of my system… okay, a _long_ weekend given how attractive she was, but it wasn't as if I could take her to the Bahamas, which was too bad, that could be fun…

'Not to disturb your train of thought, hentai, but your kettle's boiled dry and you're going to burn out the bottom of it.' she pointed out. 'And on a slightly different but related topic, how many people are there in Gotham City who could actually cope with somebody taking up residence in their head without committing suicide or going on medication so heavy that all they could do was drool?'

"Damn!" She was right—about the kettle anyway. I refilled it, the water hissing and seething as it hit the overheated metal. Anyhow, if she were flesh and blood, where the hell would I have met her? With all she had going for her, she'd never end up a street-strolling hooker, and for the last three years that's where I'd gone when I couldn't scratch the itch on my own. Before that…before that I didn't remember clearly, but it was hard to imagine I'd ever had a relationship as interesting as ours was. Not with anybody.

Whatever she had been before she died, and that could have about anything, because she had enough brains to make it in whatever field she wanted, it was a sure bet that we moved in different circles, so we never would have met.

Unless it was when I robbed her bank or something while she was there, and how would I have known that Asian chick over there was anything special, even if she _was_ hot? I mean, how would I have asked her out? Stuck a knife in her mouth and told her I was taking her to dinner and a movie? How could that have led anywhere good?

'It couldn't have.' she replied. 'I'd have been too scared to appreciate your better qualities.'

"Oh, you think I have better qualities?" I waggled my eyebrows at her.

'Don't bother fishing for compliments.' Gracie threw back at me tartly. 'Your better qualities are microscopic.'

"Are not!" I stood up and stripped off my jacket. "I've warmed up again, so, uh, the mighty anaconda's come back out of hiding to bask in the tropical sun—."

I reached for my belt buckle, but she turned away, covering her eyes with her hands. 'Keep your reptiles to your self, hentai!'

I smiled, because I'd kinda been expecting that reaction. "Never sultry when I've got time for it. Now why is that, sassy girl?"

'Because I'd like to keep this to a PG-13 rating for the time being, thank you very much.'

"Aaaah, well." I said, sitting back down. "I'd rather wait and see if the real thing's ever possible, myself."

'Don't get too optimistic.' she warned me. 'A girl never likes being taken for granted, after all.'

"_Believe_ me, Gracie. There's _nothing_ about you I take for granted.' How could I, when she was evolving all the time? How or why she'd wound up in my cranium didn't matter. She was a gift. An extra pair of eyes and ears, an extra brain—and a good one, at that.

How many other top-flight criminal bosses out there had what I did, somebody absolutely trustworthy who was always watching my back? Somebody who couldn't be bought, blackmailed, bullied, bamboozled or bumped off?

'How alliterative of you.' Grace commented. 'Just don't count on me to take a bullet for you. I'm a little too thin and a little too dead to make a good human shield.'

"You know what you are?" I asked, finally pouring hot water over my cocoa mix and stirring it. "You're not an ace in the hole. You're more like an ace up my sleeve—or better still, you're my flasher."

'Excuse me? You haven't won that bet yet, Bozo!' She sat up sharply and put her hands on her hips in mock indignation.

"No, no, not like that. It's a poker term. A flasher is, uh, something like a lighter with a mirror polish, maybe a coin or medallion. You say it's your lucky piece, and you, uh, you always put it on the table when you play. Then when it's your turn to deal, you deal the cards out over the flasher so you can read, on the mirror surface, what cards you're dealing out. A classic hustler's trick, but, uh, you can only use it on rubes who don't know jack. Nah, that comparison isn't right—you're a hold-out. The ultimate hold-out."

'As in 'holding out' for marriage?' she asked. 'Can you waft some of that chocolate smell this way? Mmmmmm.'

"Why does it always come down to sex with you? I'm beginning to think you're the real hentai around here—No.

"A hold-out is a concealed weapon, a _really_ concealed weapon. Something that'll evade pat-downs or metal detectors, even strip searches. Like the fishing line garrotes I thread in my lapels, except you wouldn't be found even with a full body cavity search and you couldn't be taken away with the rest of my gear. Or, well—you're all of those things put together." Yes, that was it. She was my secret weapon, invisible and deadly, an ace up my sleeve, a flasher that told me everything.

She was mine, this slender girl-ghost with her shiny black hair, a gift from who knew where, years of birthday and Christmas presents rolled into one, and I was going to keep her.

She was_ mine_.

'Without you, there is no me.', she had said, and she had meant it.

She was mine.

I liked that. I liked that a lot.

* * *

A/N: So it's a kind of warm fluffy piece, but what the hey, it's Christmas, isn't it? What's Christmas without some warm fuzzies? And I'm sorry if I haven't written you a review reply lately but again, it's Christmas and crazy busy and I figure you'd rather have another chapter instead. I hope everybody got their heart's desire or at least their very own copy of The Dark Knight. I already had it so instead I got a Dark Knight calender for 2009 and the Batmanga book, a collection of Japanese Batman comics from the 1960s, thus combining my obsessions. Sigh...if only there had been a Joker story in it or a girl ghost with lots of long black hair over her face...or both together....


	57. Crossed Wires

"Okay." I drained the dregs of my cocoa, set aside the empty cup, and reached for my laptop. "Time to get to work. I, uh, wonder if the pol—eeece have plugged up the leaks in their computer security yet."

The answer was no, but they had given it a decent try and it took me about fifteen minutes of concerted effort to circumvent the patches. Only then I discovered they had tried something cute, which was to put misinformation in the case files I'd already cracked, while at the same time hiding their new data in encrypted files. That took a little longer…

At some point I looked up and said, "Hey, Gracie-gal—Grace?" I looked over at where she had been sitting, but she wasn't there. "Where'd you go?" I looked around the tower room. Nothing. Well, she _could _hide from me, but why would she? And it wasn't like her to be silent. "Graaaacie. Come out, come out wherever you are…" Maybe she'd stepped out for a moment while I was busy, but after telling me that she was lost without me, that seemed unlikely.

Something above me flickered, and I looked up at a roiling mass of black smoke. My first thought was _Shit, I don't have an extinguisher_, but my second was _Why don't I smell anything_? The smoke writhed above me, then…poured down over my body, wreathing me in flowing tentacles, and it made a sussurating sound, as of several people whispering to each other just too far away to be understood. It sounded malicious, eager, gloating. Did it eat my ghost-girl as an appetizer, and was it now looking for an entrée?

A blob of it coalesced into a featureless mass right in my face, bobbing and swaying with as-yet unrealized menace. I leaned to the left; so did it. I feinted right, then darted left again, and it was already there.

Then it opened its eyes, which were huge and black and… 'Boo!' said Grace, out of the featureless fog.

"Nice try, sassy girl." I replied. "I like the business with the eyes. However, I still can't give you more than a B plus."

'Why not?' her voice issued from the shadowy mass.

"Critiques later. Pull yourself together now, there's something you're going to want to see. It might be time to tell the police, uh, about that website with the dots. I threw together a piggyback worm and hitched it on there, and it yielded some, uh, very in-ter-esting reeesults."

* * *

Several hours later, in the new Major Crimes Unit HQ:

"So Crane was right." Montoya said, watching the 'underlayer' video from Schreck's. "They're using subliminal imagery to program people into committing suicide." Several of the core group, meaning in this case, Montoya, Bullock, Gordon and Batman, were sitting around a conference table, surrounded by bulletin boards, photographs, and other such investigative tools.

"It isn't that simple." Batman rasped. He had chosen the darkest spot possible, and was sitting in a way that cast his face into shadow. "We may know the method they use to trigger the suicides, but we still don't know how they prime their victims. If it is through the Internet, then which sites are involved?"

"Good question." Commissioner Gordon interjected. "Our esteemed mayor can shut down the schools, but he can't shut down the internet. What about this company, Admospherics, Ltd? Is there any chance they could be behind this?"

"They're a real small outfit." Sergeant Bullock replied, "run out of a home office in Berwick. That contract they've got with Schreck's is their first ever, and Schreck insisted on an exclusive. When I say real small, what I mean is, it's only two people. Annalise and David Flavin. I went over there to have a talk with them, and my gut says no, they ain't.

"Mrs. Flavin, she's their main programmer, offered to come back and help us, but, um, they used to live in the Narrows until Fear Night, and she got caught out in it. Ever since then, she's had phobias about open spaces and public places and being around strangers, and a couple of other things, I forget what all. Point of that is, she's in with the station nurse trying to get her head together after coming back into the city for the first time in months."

At that moment, Gordon's assistant Marjorie stuck her head in the door. "Commissioner, a call's come in from someone claiming to be the Joker's companion Grace."

"Another crackpot," Gordon said with loathing. Quite a few people had called in with all kinds of false claims, but that always happened when a major crime had been committed.

"No, sir. I think this one's for real. She knew things only someone who had seen the entire video would know." The Gotham City PD had not released the entire video shot at Mercier's Modeling Bureau to the media, only carefully edited clips and snippets. No one wanted the public to know the Joker was doing better than they were at investigation, after all.

Marjorie wasn't finished yet, however. "She also says if she can speak to Batman, he'll identify her." The caped crusader immediately became the focus of attention.

"I spoke to her once, briefly, on the night the Joker escaped." Batman admitted. "I didn't know about their connection at the time."

Gordon asked, "Marjorie, could you please route that call through the speaker phone in here?" The woman nodded and left. "And get a tracer on it!" he called after her.

'Hello?' It was the same voice as the woman on the video: slightly lower than average, colored with cool irony, tinged with something smoky about it, like a cup of lapsang souchon tea. 'Is Batman there?'

"Yes." the hero replied.

'Good. When we met, I told you that Rachel Dawes was being held in a fallout shelter. I also asked you about disassociated identity disorder. Is that something anybody else would know?'

"No. It isn't. She's the real thing." he told the detectives around the table.

'Thank you.' came the voice from the phone.

"Where are you calling from?" Batman asked.

They could all hear the Joker's manic giggle in the background. 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so maybe we should move on to why I called.' The detectives heard whispering.

'Oh, and Jay—_the Joker_ says not to waste your time tracing this call, it's a pre-paid cell phone and he's using a "Tower Bounce", whatever that is. The bad news is that your computer security still sucks, his words, not mine, but the good news is that we found Allan Porter's flash drive and it had a link to a website on it. This is the address…' Grace recited a long URL code.

Montoya seized the nearest laptop and typed it in frantically. "It's just a lot of dots." Said the detective after she hit enter and the site loaded.

'Wrong. The red dots represent women who have committed suicide or who are scheduled to, the bright blue are men, the pink are girls and pale blue, boys. Several hours before the next wave of suicides is scheduled, there'll be an increase in the number of dots posted here, and several hours later, the number will adjust to reflect the actual deaths.' More whispering. 'I'm getting to that! Sorry. Mr. Laff-O here, meaning the Joker, and I, had an argument about who would be more credible. I won, but he keeps putting his two cents worth in."

"Miss…Grace," the commissioner put in, "are you in any danger at this time? Are you being held against your will?" Grace sounded nothing like a prisoner or a hostage. If anything, she sounded like a girl who was trying to stay serious while a friend or lover was doing their best to get her to laugh.

That provoked a lot of Joker giggling in the background. 'You seem like a very nice man, Commissioner. Thank you for being concerned for me, but I'm not in any danger and I have nothing to be afraid of. Truly.'

"Then do you understand you're aiding and abetting an escapee who is criminally insane and a murderer, and you can be held responsible for your actions in a court of law?" Gordon followed it up.

'I think the courts would have a field day with my legal status. Listen, do you want the rest of the information I have to share with you or not? I thought you'd rather talk to me than to Jay because I'm saner and a nicer person, but you're not making this easy.'

"I'm sorry," Gordon backed down. "We do want to hear what you have to say. Please go ahead."

'_Thank_ you. We know you've discovered how subliminal messages are being fed to the suicides, but you don't know where. The site with the dots links up with dozens of sites in the Gotham Metro area, all legitimate and unconnected to each other. Their data streams have been polluted with extra content, hidden content. There's Gothamscene, which is for the under-eighteen crowd, the Gotham City Nursing Professionals Association, The Gotham City Teacher's Union, Gotham Singles Café Online…'

She rattled off several other sites, but the one which made all four law enforcement officers cry out was, 'the Gotham City Fraternal Order of Police website—.'

'What? Yes, that's been hijacked too.' Grace said, over their protests. 'Jay says the mirror sites, which are independent back-up servers in case the main sites go down or are overloaded, are the key. If you can filter out the corrupted content, you should be able to stop the suicides—but he says it won't end there. If you block them in one area, they'll attack more directly. Sooner or later they'll come out of hiding. In fact, he's looking forward to it. Good-bye—Oh, wait. Has anyone reported four bodies turning up in the Palisades, one shot in the head and three with major stab wounds?'

This time they heard the Joker say, very clearly, "No fair! You can't win a bet like _that_!"

'What? The Palisades is a big area. It's not like I gave them an address. Oh, all right. Never mind.' The connection broke.

All four of the investigators stared at the phone. "Well." Commissioner Gordon summed up the situation. "It's less than fifteen hours until 11:45AM, which is when the next wave of suicides is expected. We've got a lot of work to do, so I suggest we stop messing around."

* * *

A/N: Okay, so how was the intangible Grace able to make a phone call? Easy. Jay did it for her. Once the connection was made, he didn't even have to hold the phone, just put it down. Again, I apologize if I haven't replied to your review. I really, really want to, because I appreciate every last one of them, but it takes time away from writing. However, now I have three days off in a row, and I might be able to get caught up.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

J-Horror.


	58. The Voice

"Realizing that preventing further suicides is a priority, who do we have out looking for him—_for them_?" Batman asked.

"We have no one to spare." Gordon explained. "Pictures of the Joker with and without make-up are plastered all over Gotham City, but for Grace we have nothing but a picture of a lot of hair. Unless you can sit down with an Identikit program—?"

"I never saw her face either. She…has a talent for hiding. What about the explosion down at the riverfront? How many were killed?" the Dark Knight inquired.

"No one." Montoya replied. "It was definitely the Joker's handiwork, because we're still picking up Joker cards at the scene, but the Grudge cleared everybody out of the area. There was only one hospitalization, and that was a morbidly obese bartender who suffered a cardiac incident while fleeing the scene."

" 'The Grudge?'" Bruce asked.

"Yeah." Montoya tapped a few keys on the laptop, then turned it around so he could see a clip from one of the versions of Ju-On. Kayako, moving on all fours, pursued a boy down a hall, scuttling like a giant spider. "Almost everyone reported that Grace chased them out of the blast area like this. Most of the others said she did this."

A different clip, one he recognized. A dark miasma drifted above an elderly woman, seeming to feed off her. Then 'it' turned its head and opened its eyes. "So we started calling her the ghost from The Grudge and somehow it got simplified into just calling her the Grudge. You have to admit it's easier than calling her the Jou-gyal Pritay, as Crane did."

"So now we got the Joker and the Grudge. Not to mention the Scarecrow." Bullock commented. "At least he's still safe in Arkham."

"Anyhow, that's why she any credibility with us at all." Gordon summed up. "Her motives are unclear, but her actions show she has some conscience left, despite who she's associating with."

There was a knock on the door, and the station nurse looked in. "Mrs. Flavin is feeling better now." He opened the door further, and a woman, perhaps thirty years old, probably younger, came in. She had a high, wide forehead, made higher by the way she pulled back her hair, which was tinted dark red. Her eyes were a clear grey, she had nice skin, and a face that was meant to be cheerfully but unremarkably attractive. Right now it was not cheerful. Around her neck was a bead necklace of some grey stone that flashed blue and green when it caught the light at the right angle, centered by a round silver pendant in the shape of a fish bent in a circle so its head touched its tail.

"Please, have a seat." The commissioner invited her to take a place around the table.

"Thank you." She slipped into a chair, looking about her nervously. "It wasn't—we didn't do anything illegal. David, my husband, he looked into it very thoroughly first. It wasn't even unethical, I mean, we weren't out to make anyone spend more than they wanted to or buy things they didn't want to buy, we just meant to stop people from breaking laws—."

"We believe you, Mrs. Flavin." Commissioner Gordon told her reassuringly. "What we need now is your help in stopping these suicides."

"Of course." she said. "Anything I can do…"

* * *

It started to rain as predicted, heavy, fat drops that soon fell thick and fast. The rain drummed down on the folly tower's wooden roof, it splatted against the Wayne penthouse windows of the guest suite where Rachel Dawes was trying, with swollen eyes and a sour knot in her stomach, to escape for a few hours into blessed oblivion. It washed down over the grimy city streets, cleaning them both of physical dirt and metaphoric dirt, as the merchants and peddlers of flesh and drugs and other sordid things gave up and went inside. It poured down on the roof of the Major Crimes Unit building, and it gurgled as it overflowed the storm drains of the elegant townhouse complex in the Palisades where Talia lived.

The rainwater overflowed the drains for a very good reason. The drains were blocked with…well, with evidence that it is very difficult to dispose of human bodies, and that it is _always_ a mistake to leave that task to someone else, someone who is simply hired for the purpose. They simply do not care as much about doing the job right. Talia had arranged for the body of Master Gotebei to be removed with every honor he deserved, but she then made the mistake of ordering that the dead clowns be disposed of like the trash they were.

* * *

But Annalise Flavin, as helpful as she was in explaining how the subliminals worked, could not shed light on how to remove them from sites in which they were embedded. Not without knowing more about how they were corrupted in the first place.

Commissioner Gordon sighed. "We have received…a lead on how this works, a lead which may or may not pan out. It's unconventional to allow you to hear this, and for obvious reasons I must ask you not to share this with anyone."

"I won't" Mrs. Flavin sat up.

"Play back the recording of that call." Gordon requested, and as Grace's voice filled the room again, Mrs. Flavin's eyes grew large while her mouth drew down at the corners.

"Is something wrong, Mrs. Flavin?" Batman asked her.

"Yes." she replied. "I know that voice. That's Cory Witt. I used to work with her at the Brackenbury Museum of Asian Art. She was in the Education department, while I worked on their website. Except--."

Montoya looked up from the notepad where she was frantically scribbling down the name. "Except what?"

"She's been missing for more than a year. She and I went to this Korean restaurant for short ribs, and halfway through the meal, she got up and ran out of the dining room. She even left her purse behind. As far as I can tell, nobody's seen her since then."

"Do you remember when this was, exactly?" Montoya asked.

"Yes. Yes, I do. It was Fear Night."


	59. Questions Of Identity

A/N: You may have noticed I renamed myself, a new name for a new year. Not too big a change, though. I am now J-Horror Girl rather than J-Horror Fan 4-ever. In the bigger scheme of things, I am of course a J-Horror fan forever, but I wanted a ficname that was more mature.

Also, I have found a *wonderful* site which has lots and lots of Asian horror movies online in the form of streaming video to be watched for free. I recommend it to all my readers. It is called, appropriately enough, Asian-Horror-Movies dot com. Check it out; the half-hour short Rattle Rattle gave me serious heebie-jeebies. Very, very scary.

* * *

'So,' I began as Jay gathered up the dirty dishes, then opened a window to toss them all out into the rain. 'why only a B plus?'

"Easier this way." he muttered. "Let the rain scrub them. Well-uh, Gracie, there's two things. First of all, you don't _mean_ it. You're not really gonna, uh, rip my guts out through my navel if you feel like it, or chew my bones clean, or anything, you're just playing."

'But of course I'm not going to do those things to _you_, idiot.' I pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, but we're talking about what you, uh, call _attitude_. Have you ever believed I wouldn't do the kinds of things I think about, like test out knives on a bunch of little kids?"

'Yes, but I've also seen you shoot your own man, like you did when Talia had that katana to his throat, just for the hell of it.'

He got out the sleeping bag and untied the cords. "And I have likewise seen you kill people. The best you did was when you let your shoes loose on those three in the modeling agency. The others were just incidental. I'm not saying _don't_ have fun with your haunting, because you ought to have fun. Otherwise it's all such a grind. I only really started having fun on Fear Night. Before that, I might as well have had a nine-to-five suit job. But until you have sincerity behind it, you're still gonna be Casper the Friendly Ghost." With one flip of his wrist, he unrolled the bag.

'So until I'm an unpredictable homicidal maniac ghost, or in other words until I'm more like you, I'll lack a certain credibility. Somehow I think I can live with that—or, rather _exist_ with that. You said "First". That implies there's a second reason, so what is it?'

"You're still imitating specific ghosts from those Asian horror movies, aren't you?"

'Ummm…well, yeah.'

"That's your other problem. You need to work up your own schtick. Again, using myself as an example, you got your killer clown archetype—."

'Oooooh, Jay, "Archetype" is _such_ a big word. Careful, or you might turn me on.' I wriggled; he rolled his eyes.

Taking a handful of paper towels, he wet them with some of the (now) lukewarm water in the kettle and took the rest of the makeup off his face. "You're not going to get me going that easy. Are you done yet?

"Okay. The killer clown archetype isn't new, but I put my own spin on it. I'm not copying anybody else's look or lines or moves. Clearly there's uh, an Asian ghost girl archetype, going by all the DVD covers in that video store, but you need to work up your own per-tick-you-lar haunting routine. Make the role your own, work out what's your original take on haunting."

'Like what?'

"Now what good would it, uh, be if I were to tell you? You have to come up with it yourself, sassy girl. That's the whole point."

'Hmmm.' I watched him take off his shirt and pants, fold them more-or-less neatly, and put them to the side. While he got out toothbrush and toothpaste, I thought of something else. 'Jay?'

"Wha?" he asked around a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

'Do you think Batman/Bruce Wayne knows his girlfriend is actually a kick-ass martial artist-assassin?'

He tried to laugh but nearly swallowed the toothbrush. Choking and frothing at the mouth, he spat into the waste bucket. "Don't _do_ that, Gracie, you'll kill me. No, he doesn't know. I'd bet on it if we didn't already have a bet going. She'd either be patrolling Gotham with him in a cute little Bat-lady outfit or fighting against him. Friend or foe, he doesn't have anything else. Except for the People, of course. The ones he's fighting for, the happy Gothamites who'll put him on a pedestal—but burn him in effigy the next day."

'I think it would be very interesting to be there when he found out about her.' I mused.

"Wish on a star, sassy girl. You never know: you might get your wish." He unzipped the bag and got in.

'Hey—about the next wave of suicides. Do you think the police will be able to stop it?'

"Um—no. Not this round. It's too soon, and remember, those yobbos can barely find their asses with both hands. But I expect they'll get it together in time to stop the one after that. Now zip it: I want to get some sleep."

'If you're talking about your sleeping bag,' I said snippily, 'you'll have to zip it yourself. I certainly can't do it for you.'

* * *

"Cory Witt—was that her full name?" Montoya dropped her notes and reached for the laptop. "Was Missing Persons notified?"

"No, it was something longer, something out of Shakespeare. She said her mother practically worshiped Shakespeare—Cordelia. That was it, Cordelia. I don't know about Missing Persons. I was—hospitalized for a while afterward." Mrs. Flavin twisted her hands.

"Witt, Cordelia Diane." Montoya said decisively. "Five feet seven, weighs 120-130, black hair, black eyes. Twenty-four at the time of her disappearance, which was three weeks before her birthday, so she'd be twenty-six today. And…" She turned the laptop around so the others could see the file photo.

Cordelia Diane Witt, possibly AKA 'Grace' and AKA 'the Grudge', was definitely Asian. Her skin was a warm golden brown and her eyes had the characteristic epicanthic fold to their lids. She was not a classic beauty and certainly no one's idea of a porcelain princess from the Orient. Her nose was too flat and wide, her chin too square, and her gaze uncomfortably intelligent, but her mouth was generous and tender, and she had cute dimples. Her glossy, medium length hair had been cut to flatter her face and soften her jawline. She wore a navy blazer over a white blouse with a necklace that looked like a branch of cherry blossoms made out of twisted wire and pink pearls.

"Was she adopted?" Commissioner Gordon asked.

"I don't know." Annalise Flavin replied. "She didn't talk much about her family. I know her mother was dead, of cancer, I think, and she didn't speak to her father often."

"Any brothers or sisters?"

"I don't know. We were friends, but we were friends _at work_, if you know what I mean. We talked two or three times a week, had lunch together a couple of times a month, that kind of thing. Once in a while when David worked late, we went out for something after work. We never got together on days off. If one or the other of us had gotten a job somewhere else, we would have promised to keep in touch—but we wouldn't have. We weren't that close." The programmer was trembling and pale, on the verge.

"I understand." Gordon said, remembering that the woman in front of him had developed crippling psychological problems since Fear Night. "But anything you can remember, anything you can tell us about her could be invaluable."

"Well—I don't know what you want to know."

"She was reported missing a week after Fear Night by Jodylynne Boyd, head of the Education department at the Brackenbury Museum." said Montoya, reading the Missing Persons report. "Ms. Boyd said there had been problems in the workplace and that Witt might have quit without notice, but she was reporting her missing anyway. Can you tell us what she meant by that?"

"Oh, that was because of the summer film series. They gave her the responsibility because it was a dead end and she was new, so she didn't know how bad attendance was, but she turned it around—she decided to put together a program based on a Japanese tradition of telling ghost stories in summer time. All the movies had ghosts in them, which was fine with Jodylynne when they were old black-and-white period piece films from the fifties, with everyone in traditional kimonos.

"But Cory went ahead and scheduled newer movies as well, what they call J-Horror. The Brackenbury is very conservative. They're happy with teaching the tea ceremony and Chinese calligraphy, but Cory was all for teaching kids to draw manga and do the Lion and Dragon dances. Of course there was conflict." Annalise Flavin spread her hands and shrugged. "But she never would have quit without notice."

"What happened with the film series?" Batman asked, curious.

"It went ahead as Cory planned, and for the first time it was standing room only, and it brought in a lot of money. The series itself was free, no admission fees, but people visited the gift shops and donated money—and quite a few of them became members."

"But surely that was a good thing for the museum, and for the Education department?" Gordon asked.

"It was a poke in the eye for Jodylynne was what it was." Annalise told him. "I was lucky. I had a male department head. When he didn't like someone, he was direct about it. When a female superior doesn't like you, she's poison. She'll smile twice as much and be extra nice to you, but you have to watch your back, or you'll find a dagger in it. I'd rather work for a man than a woman any day."

Montoya surprised the men in the room by nodding vigorously, a knowing expression on her face.

"What else is in the report, Detective?" Gordon turned to her.

"Not much. The investigators went to Ms. Witt's apartment, over on 11th street, but it was empty, completely cleared out. Not even a scrap of paper on the floor."

"So she left in a hurry." Bullock observed. "Seems to support this Jodylynne's idea that she quit."

"Her bank accounts haven't been touched since." Montoya refuted.

"She got up and ran out of the dining room without her purse, leaving most of a plate of food!" Mrs. Flavin defended her friend. "_Nobody_ decides to walk off the job like that."

"Do you know in what direction she was heading?" Batman questioned her.

"No. I—I thought she was sick or something, that she was going to the bathroom. Afterwards—a long time afterwards, I realized she must have seen something out of the window. We were near the front window."

"Was her car maybe getting towed?" Bullock asked.

"No. We hadn't come by car. Anyway, I wasn't looking out of the window, I was looking towards the bathrooms, so I don't know which way she went."

"What happened then?" Batman leaned forward.

"Nothing. I finished eating, and I paid. I paid for both of us. She would have paid me back, I knew that. I waited for a while at the table, and then I went to the ladies' room. Cory wasn't there, so I went outside."

"What happened to her purse?" Montoya asked.

"I took it with me—but when the fear toxin hit, I lost it somewhere, as well as my own. I really, really don't want to talk about that."

"That's all right." Gordon soothed her. "How much later was it, do you know? How long between the time Ms. Witt left the room and the toxin hit?"

"Um—between forty-five minutes to an hour, maybe."

"Thank you, Ms. Flavin. You've been very helpful…"


	60. Ra's al Ghul

A/N: The best research I can do on Batman Begins puts Ra's al Ghul's compund in the kingdom of Bhutan. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later on in this fic. (Not really!). Also, a cheongsam is one of those Chinese brocade dresses with the high collars that fasten down one side and the long slits in the skirt.

* * *

The rain came down in waves, in sheets, in torrents. It gushed down the gutters and into the storm sewers, and from there into the river and the bay. Except at one particular townhouse complex in the Palisades, that is. There it found its way blocked, not so much by the bodies of three dead clowns as by the wide swathes of carpet they had been wrapped in. The carpet blocked the run-off like a stopper in a bathtub. Having no other outlet, the water backed up the way it came, flooding the driveway into the complex.

In a surprisingly short time, the water was too deep to drive through, as the director of the Gotham City Water Authority found out on his way home. When his vehicle stalled out halfway through a puddle that was more like an infant lake and growing faster all the time, he was forced to abandon it and wade for home, ruining a pair of brand new Gucci loafers. By the time he reached his front door, he was in a mood so foul that by all rights the milk in refrigerators within a half-mile radius should have soured.

The merely rich could not get a city crew out to unblock a drain after ten pm on one of the worst nights of the year, no matter how many angry phone calls or threats they made, but all Director Hingle had to do was crook his metaphoric finger, and they came running.

* * *

Henri Ducard, who was also Ra's Al-Ghul, worked the silicone therapy ball in his left hand while he pondered his next move. Picking up and positioning chess pieces _just so_ counted as physical therapy as well as mental exercise these days. Between the fire and the crash, his hands had been reduced, for a while, into useless bony claws barely covered by their shiny, scarred skin. But now he was doing much better. While severe, the damage was not irreparable, and therefore he could forgive the one responsible.

He glanced at his opponent, Lady Shiva, who was idly twirling a folded battle fan between her fingers. The fan was no dainty feminine toy of bamboo sticks and paper; it was a deadly weapon. It only looked like grey moiré, a silk with a delicate water-ripple pattern. What it actually was, was twenty slim blades made of steel and iron folded over and hammered out and folded again, until it was hundreds, thousands of infintessimally thin layers which had that same water ripple patterns. Blades made of such metal were unparalleled in their beauty, toughness, and sharpness.

The same could be said of Lady Shiva herself. In her delicate orchid brocade cheongsam, she was the picture of a traditional Chinese beauty circa 1930's Shanghai, a deliberate affectation on her part, and her bobbed hair waved around a face so perfect she caused traffic accidents.

Lady Shiva was not her birth name, of course. With few exceptions, an apprentice entering the League gave up their birth names as they gave up all other family ties. In the Great Valley and its surrounding regions, the families of those chosen for the league even went so far as to hold funerals the day they bid their child goodbye, for from now on, their sons or daughters were dead to them.

New apprentices were given names appropriate to their station, such as 'Worm' or 'Garbage'. Only when they had distinguished themselves did they earn another name. Lady Shiva deserved her name in every possible way.

Reaching out, al Ghul moved his knight to Queen's Bishop four. "I played chess with Suleiman the Magnificent at least twenty times." he commented. "In his set, there were no queens. The piece we call the queen he called the Grand Vizier. In his world, women did not get so much as a single space on the game board.

"It was the European mindset which declared that Jack must have Jill and every King must have a Queen, and so it has been ever since. What have you to say to that, Lady Shiva?" A draft brought in a curl of incense smoke from Master Gotebei's bier; someone had either come in or gone out.

The fan in her fingers stopped moving. "I say that pawns, which together equal the other pieces in number if not in power, are secretly female, for, provided they survive, they can become queens, no matter how low-born they may be. No other piece on the board can claim that distinction." Ah, she was an _excellent_ player. The game going on the chessboard was nothing to the feint and parry of their conversation. And it was a battle, make no mistake.

"Well said, Lady." Shiva had been born a Chinese peasant girl. She and her sister both had trained in the Temple of the Blue Flower, and had done equally well. But every graduate had a trial to undergo, as Bruce Wayne had. Bruce's had been to decapitate a condemned man, and he had not passed. Shiva and her sister, for their trial, had been pitted against one another…to the death. Shiva had won. Won yet lost. When she spoke of low born pawns surviving to become queens, she spoke of herself.

"Thank you." Lady Shiva lifted and drained her tea cup. "I pity those who are born so high that they wear crowns from the start."

"Why is that?" al Ghul asked. What was she alluding to now? The delicious mystery of a beautiful woman…he hoped he would never become immune.

"When one begins life at the bottom of a mountain, the only way in which one can go is up. When one is born at the summit, the best one can do is hold on to what you already possess—or else fall. And the mountain is very high."

That statement was pointedly aimed at al Ghul's heart, which was to say, his daughter Talia, born to power, wealth and privilege—unless she meant Bruce Wayne, likewise endowed from the hour of his birth. He drained his own cup of tea, and made a grimace. Mud, the apprentice brought along to serve him in America, had interpreted his request for tea to mean he wanted it boiled with salt and butter in the traditional way. Shiva had been served from the same pot, and had not batted an eyelash at the vicious brew.

Such an answer deserved a reply in kind. "Yet if one is born at the summit, one can see clearly in all directions from the start. One can see that there are other mountains to be climbed—and conquered. Eagles are born on high peaks, barnyard fowl on level ground. And remember what those fowl come to, in the end." His…infirmity had cost him some power, created factions within the League, but as he continued to grow in strength and health, he would crush those dissenters, making the League one seamless whole again.

Someone scratched at the door. "Come in." al Ghul commanded.

Mud, a lad barely in his teens (who had not yet earned a better name) opened it and bowed. Behind him stood Talia, who bore a wrapped package in her hands. "Daughter! I had not expected you. Lady Shiva, I look forward to continuing our game another time."

"You honor me, Master." Shiva bowed and left. As she passed Talia, the two deadliest female assassins alive acknowledged each other with mere sideways flicks of the eye; a calculated insult, mutually exchanged.

"Mud, I want some more tea. A fresh pot, and clean cups, for me and my daughter. Black tea, made in the English fashion, you understand? Not boiled with butter and salt—or boiled with milk and sugar, either. Steeped, and with the milk and sugar on the side." The lad bowed and backed out of the room. If it were not impossible, al Ghul would swear that the boy was incompetent on purpose, rebelling against—what ever it was he thought he had to rebel against.

"Come here, child." The Head of the Demon (a literal translation of Ra's al Ghul) beamed upon the Face of the Demon. (Talia meant 'face'.) The same treatments which prolonged his life stole something from him: fertility. He had fathered very few children, and of the even fewer born alive, only she was without defect of body or mind.

"Father." She knelt before him gracefully, on both knees, bowing her head. "Please accept this inadequate and miserable token from your unworthy child." With both hands she presented him with the package she had brought with her.

He took it, although the scars pulled when he opened his hands that far. A rectangle wrapped in tsasho paper with its flecks of tree bark and bound with a cord the exact same shade as the blue flower from which his fortress took its name, it was identifiable even before he pulled the cord and took it from its wrappings. It was a book, and the book he most coveted, the rarest book in the world.

"The Endless." he said with pleasure. "Daughter, I fear I am the unworthy one. Only seven ever printed and bound, and of those, the whereabouts of only four are known. Or is it now five?" He stroked the cover.

"It is still four." she told him. "Uhrmann died at his summer home in Langerhans. I bought the collection in its entirety from his only heir, his grandson. He thought he had cheated me, not knowing this volume alone was worth ten times ten and ten again as much as he asked for his grandsire's entire library."

"There is no shortage of fools in this world." al Ghul agreed. "Look at it; is it not a thing of beauty in and of itself? The finest linen rag paper, and the ink so dark one would think it was wet only an hour ago. Did you read it?"

"No. I looked only to be certain it was what it should be. Yours should be the pleasure of reading it first, and so it would have been, Father, had Bruce not picked it up." There was a mournful note in her voice.

"I do not begrudge him that…How do you like him, Daughter? Tell me truly."

"I—he is as you said, Father. A man worthy to be called your son."

"But—? There is something wrong. I can hear it in your voice."

"He has my heart, but he withholds his from me, pining after Rachel Dawes. When I heard she lived, I was glad, for a dead rival is worse than a living one. Fond memory smoothes away imperfections. But even though she spurns him, he does not turn to me—and I cannot tell why not. I treat him with the respect and deference Mother treated you, and it does not please him."

"Ah. There is your mistake. There will be time enough to treat him so once you are married. Right now, you must make him seek to please you."

Again there came a scratching at the door. "Come in, Mud."

The apprentice entered, bearing a tray with tea implements, which he set on the table. Al Ghul watched him as he poured, not trusting him to get it right. What was wrong with the lad? He had shown such promise back at the Temple over a year ago, but once they came to America, something had gone awry. He looked ordinary enough, like any other Bhutanese boy, golden brown skin, black hair and eyes, a rather flat, wide nose—and a stubbornly square chin.

"Father—there is another matter which troubles me."

"What is it, Child of my Heart?"

"I saw a ghost yesterday—a jou-gyal pritay. It was she who killed Master Gotebei, not the Joker as I said in my message. He died not of a cut or stab from an honorable weapon, but with her cursed eyes."

Something clattered loudly on the tea-tray. "Careful, Mud! Daughter, sometimes I regret your traditional upbringing and wish I had brought you up with a greater awareness of the outside world. There are no such things as jou-gyal pritays. You want to see where that legend began? Here."

Opening The Endless, he paged through to an illustration of Death dressed in a black furisode, her hair hanging in her eyes. "There is the original. Inexorable Death, for Death comes to all eventually, in the form of a beautiful maiden. The final best friend of humanity, the one who brings surcease from pain and suffering. All else is a tale told of a summer evening to frighten children."

"Perhaps so—but the one I saw wore white, not black. Perhaps she isn't Death full grown, but merely her daughter." Talia stood firm. "And she followed the Joker closer than a shadow. He called her by her name. He spoke to her as one would to a pet, or a child, or a lover, teasing and familiar. A great many young men court Death, it is true, but not so literally. Father, if you doubt I saw what I did, all you need do is turn on the news."

"I never said you lied. What you saw may not be what you imagine it to be. I have seen the news. This 'Grace' is real, and not a ghost—." He was interrupted by an enormous crash as the entire tea table went over. "MUD! This is the outside of enough. Get out of here. Send in another to clean this mess up. Do not let me see your face again until I send for you."

The lad scrambled to his feet and left the room. As he passed Talia, she saw a fresh tear roll down his cheek. "It's my fault," he whispered. "It's all my fault."

Unfortunately no one asked him exactly what he meant.


	61. Grace, Dreaming

A/N: I made up the history of Gotham City. There are lots of folk tales about the 'Fools of Gotham'. I adapted some of those.

* * *

Grace: I dreamt, and even as I dreamt, I knew it was more a memory than a dream. By the orange glow of a charcoal fire, I sat watching an old man cut shapes from a sheet of silver with a pair of snips. He was my great-uncle.

If this period in my life had been a Mastercard commercial, it would have gone like this:

Dzongkha language software: $49.95

Three weeks in Bhutan, including airfare, meals, lodging, transportation: $5,000.

Finding out the reason you can eat five-alarm chili like it was breakfast cereal is because for centuries your ancestors have considered hot peppers a vegetable rather than a seasoning: Priceless.

And then of course there were all my cousins. Everywhere I looked, I saw a face like mine. If you haven't had that from the time when you were two months old until you're twenty-one, you don't, you _can't_ understand what it means, how right and how accepted you feel. Even if you did turn up in the village without warning, saying, "My adoptive parents said I was born here. Who am I?"

Until recently, adopting a child in Bhutan was easier than adopting a kitten from a Gotham City Humane Society. If someone wanted a child, they just called up the hospital and asked if they had any that nobody wanted. No paperwork, no interviews, no home visits. The amazing thing was how _well_ that system worked.

Bhutan was a very different place.

Great-uncle Ngawang picked up a tool and started smoothing the edges on a palm-sized disc of silver. "I'm going to put barley-ears on it, ripe ones, and jet trails for the plane that took you away and brought you back again. What does 'Go-Tham' mean in English?" He had decided I needed a proper fastening for my _kira_, the ankle length dress all Bhutani women wore, and which I had taken to wearing, in order to fit in better. Since he was a silversmith, he was going to make it rather than buy it.

He meant Gotham. My birthplace was called 'the valley where the cherry trees bloom in the autumn', so asking what my home city's name meant was more than an idle question. Place names meant a lot in Bhutan.

"It was a joke." I explained. "In England, they told tales of a town called Gotham where everyone was a fool. They planted roasted potatoes to save cooking them once they were grown, and when the village head saw the full moon reflected in a pond one night, he made everyone bring buckets and drain the pond to get the moon out before it drowned. Once, when there was a lark that sang too loud and woke everybody up, they trapped it and put it on trial for disturbing the peace. After they found it guilty, they decided it should be confined in a stockade more than six feet high. They built a strong, tall one, and filled in the cracks with moss and mud, so the bird wouldn't get out. Then they put the lark in it—and as soon as it was set free, it flew straight up and away. 'If only we'd built it twice as high.' they said. 'Then the lark would never have been able to get away.'"

He laughed. "But those are wonderful stories! There are valuable lessons in them. The bodhisattva who wrote them must have been a great teacher as well as a saint."

I opened my mouth to say he was reading a deeper meaning into those tales than they deserved, but I thought better of it. "His name has been lost." was my reply.

"Not to the Buddha."

"—true. When Europeans came to settle in the place where Gotham City now stands, it was thought a very bad place to live. It was all bogs and marsh plains with bad water and bad air that made people sick. The native tribes said a demon lived under the ground there, and nobody with any sense would live there. The other Europeans around there said that if the new settlers tried to live there, then they were more foolish than the people of Gotham. The head man of the settlers said, 'Then I will name it Gotham, and when it is the greatest city in the entire state, we will see who's foolish.' And there they stayed."

"The marsh plains would be a good place to plant rice, once the demon was cast out." My uncle put down the smoother and, picking up a stylus, began to engrave designs in the silver.

"They didn't plant rice. Instead they dug canals to drain the water off into the bay, and the canals grew so deep and wide they became rivers. Then they built houses on the drained ground—but they didn't even have the sense to build them up off the ground, as they do here in the south."

"What do they do when it floods, then?" Great-uncle Ngawang asked.

"Complain, mostly. They put sump pumps in the cellars to get rid of the water, these days."

"What's a sump pump?" he asked.

"It's like a well with an electric pump in the bottom and a hose pipe leading outside. They have a float in them like a flush toilet that makes the pump go on when the water gets too deep."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to when you could just build a house that suited the ground…The story of what happened when the demon was driven out must make for good telling."

That was a polite request to hear it. Again, I edited my first reaction, which was, 'There's no such thing as demons', because as metaphors went, what could better explain Arkham Asylum—or some of the other endemic problems Gotham had faced for centuries? "That's the problem. It was never driven out."

He gaped at me. "You're joking."

"I wish I were. They had a holy man who prayed over it, but either he wasn't holy enough or the demon was too strong. The ground under which the demon lives became a farm, but when the man who owned it went mad, they turned his house, which was big and fine, into a place to put all the mad people so they wouldn't bother anybody. After it burned down, the city sold it to a man named Josiah Arkham, who built a bigger, finer house on it. But his heirs often died, or left, or went mad."

"Of course they did. Living right on top of a demon like that…Go on. What happened to the family?" He squinted at the piece he was working on, turning it to catch the light. "I have a nice piece of turquoise around here somewhere…"

"The last direct descendant was Amadeus Arkham. He was a doctor of psychiatry. He decided to turn the house into a place to put all the mad people, only he wanted to make them well again. But one of the madmen killed Arkham's wife and daughter, and after that Arkham went mad, too. No one ever gets well in that place. And Gotham itself—there are many gangs there, like the Triad in China. The officials who should be looking after the welfare of its citizens take the money for themselves, and those who try to do good are often killed."

My great-uncle shook his head. "And you said there are eight times as many people in that one city than there are in all of Bhutan. With every bad person, the demon only gets stronger. I don't know where you're going to find a holy man strong enough to shift him now. I think even Padmasambhava (he named a famed Buddhist saint) would have trouble there…You're going to go back there, though?"

"Yes." I said. "But I will come back."

"Good." was all he said.


	62. Domesticity

By the time Gordon got home, it wasn't simply raining anymore. It was starting to freeze up, and the wind drove it in sideways, turning his umbrella inside out in the short distance from the car to the house. He wrestled with the contraption, now a flopping, spiky rag which seemed to have a mind of its own (and a vicious one, at that) for a moment before giving up and tossing it into the bushes. Now chilled to the bone and half-soaked, he unlocked his door and went in.

His wife appeared in the hallway as he was peeling off his overcoat. "Let me take that. And your hat, too. I'll hang them in the guest bathroom."

"Thanks, Barbara." Could he ever find the right words to tell her how much he appreciated her patience, her forbearance, that she could still smile at him like a christmas tree all lit up and glorious?

"You're welcome. I just made a pot of decaf. Go get yourself a mug before you catch your death of cold."

"You're a lifesaver, honey." He kissed her on the mouth, a brief buss.

"Not half the one you are. I saw the news." She beamed at him. "Not too shabby, Jim."

All the networks had picked up the Jennifer Snow story, complete with full audio, courtesy of a directional mike. "Well, it was Batman who—."

She laid a finger on his lips. "After you get your coffee, you better go in the family room. There's somebody there who has something to say to you before she can go to bed."

He glanced at the doorway. "Isn't it a school night?" he asked, confused.

"Not according to our esteemed mayor, it isn't."

"Oh, that's right." Maybe Garcia would relent and reopen the schools after tomorrow.

The coffee was exactly what he needed. He sipped at it, letting the warmth spread through his stomach, and went into the adjacent family room, where his daughter Babs was waiting on the sofa. She might not be in bed yet, but she was asleep, swathed in an old afghan Barbara's mother had crocheted.

He put his hand on her red head, mussing her hair gently to wake her. "Hey, sweetheart. What's so important that you had to wait up for me?", he said when she began to stir.

"Wha—?" she blurted, muzzily. "Oh. Hi, Daddy. I mean, hi, Dad." She sat up, regaining her preteen dignity. "Um…I saw what happened at Schreck's on the news."

"I didn't know you followed the news." He sat down beside her, and she leaned into his shoulder.

"I do when it's about you—when it's about police business, that is. Anyhow…that girl, Jennifer Snow, is she going to be okay?"

"I think so. She's spending the night at Children's Hospital, just to be sure."

The Gordons had patronized that hospital whenever Jimmy or Babs needed an emergency room for such childhood misadventures as broken arms or a doll's shoe lodged up in a nose.

Babs nodded. "That's good. Anyhow—did I say that already?" She yawned. "What you did, talking her down and all, that was pretty cool."

"You think so? I would have thought you'd be more impressed by what Batman did."

"Oh, him." She shrugged. "It was kind of hard to believe in what he did. I mean, it looked too much like what you see in the movies."

"Really? Well, thank you, Baby. I'm glad I made it as high as 'pretty cool' in your books."

"Dad! You haven't called me 'Baby' in ages!"

"You haven't called me 'Daddy' in ages either, so we're even."

"Well, you know…I'm going to go to bed now. G'night, Dad." She shuffled off the sofa and up the stairs, the afghan still wrapped around her.

"You see?" Barbara stood in the entryway to the kitchen, "You didn't do so bad this morning after all."

"I guess I didn't." he marveled. Despite all the troubles on his shoulders, Commissioner Gordon smiled.

* * *

I woke up. Despite the fact that once again I felt well rested, I had the feeling that something was subtly wrong. Turning my head, I discovered what it was. Grace's pink shoes were sitting not more than eight inches away from my head. Was it my imagination, or did they look…hungry? I glanced over at the bedroll Grace had imagined for herself. All I could see, of course, was her hair spilling over the pillow.

I looked at the shoes again. Of course, Gracie might have put them there herself, as a joke…but in the movie they'd been awfully good at getting around on their own.

How often did they need to eat, anyway?

Unzipping my sleeping bag, I picked the shoes up by their heels and put them over on Grace's side of the space heater. "I think it's time you went back to your mommy now." I told them as I put them down. Grace seemed fast asleep; remembering yesterday morning, I let her.

Stretching, I looked around the tower room. It was too quiet here, despite the roar of the waterfall outside. Where were the sounds of the city, the traffic, the sirens, the neighbors having a knock-down-drag-out fight next door? I would even have welcomed a car alarm going off. Usually I gave car alarms only as much time to shut off on their own as it took for me to get the bazooka out, loaded, and aimed. I mean, you have to have _some_ consideration for your fellow humans, don't you? Car alarms, sheesh. For every time one went off because someone was breaking into a vehicle, they went off a hundred thousand times _for no reason at all_.

Something cracked like a high-powered rifle and then there was an explosion. I hit the floor before I realized it didn't sound like a chemical explosion. It was the kind of sound I associated with…a tree falling. Getting up, I went to the nearest window and opened the shutter.

_Goddamn_, it was cold out there! There were icicles hanging down from the window arch, and I snatched up my discarded sleeping bag, wrapping it around myself. At some point in the night, the rainstorm had turned into an ice storm, and for as far as I could see, the forest looked as if it had been dipped in glass. More than half the remaining leaves were gone, and the combined weight of the ice and the sodden, frozen leaves had bent the trees to the limit and beyond. There were a lot of broken branches and trunks.

I closed that shutter and crossed to the other side of the tower, the one which faced the lawn. It looked like a battlefield, if the soldiers had been made of wood, that is. Well, _this_ wasn't good. A mess like this had to be cleaned up, and no doubt Batsy would hire an army of gardeners and tree surgeons to come out and take care of it for him. Which would make our coming and going unseen impossible.

Well, shit. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care. I'd just put the wood chipper to a use for which it was never intended and turn any witnesses into mulch without a second thought, but not this time. I didn't want to call attention to the goodies from the Boom Factory which were now quietly resting down in the Batcave. We were going to have to move again, and we would have to do it that morning.

But not immediately. I pulled on my clothes and put on my shoes, checking first to make sure they weren't actually Gracie's shoes pulling a fast one on me. (I wouldn't put anything past them. If they could change shape, who's to say they couldn't change color, too?) Since I didn't have a coat, I wrapped the sleeping bag around my shoulders once more, picked up both the buckets, and headed down the ladder, then down the stairs.

The sky was always bluest the morning after a storm, like it had been polished clean. I paused on the threshold to look out, and saw my breath puff out in little clouds of steam. Why hadn't any of the forecasters mentioned a thirty degree drop in temperature? I took one step out on the path, and nearly went ass-over-teakettle. My leather-soled shoes weren't suited to this kind of ice, but they were so stylish—and had such a nice pointy surprise spring-loaded in the toe.

I guess I just wasn't a nature boy at heart. I preferred the urban landscape, thank you very much. Espying a handy thicket, I took a quick piss, my urine steaming as it arced against a bush, then dumped out the slop bucket before heading to the waterfall. Very carefully, too, I should add. It was slicker than a cheap shyster's hair out there—and colder than a witch's tit. Gracie didn't know how good she had it at a time like this. _She_ couldn't feel a thing.

Maybe I'd gotten spoiled by my stay in Arkham. For several months, I'd enjoyed the luxury of hot and cold running water on demand, clean bedding, a flush toilet and hot showers. Right now, as my fingers went numb while I refilled the clean water bucket, all those conveniences of modern civilization were looking mighty damn good.

As I'd told my sassy girl a few days ago, I was a wanderer, moving on from place to place every two or three nights, before the neighbors could catch on—or before the bodies started stinking too much. Therefore, whatever shortcomings my current accommodations might have, I'd simply overlook them, knowing I'd be hanging my dapper purple duds up in another location soon enough.

Perhaps it was time to change that, perhaps it was time to—well, not settle down exactly, but to look for a higher class of hideouts, ones which offered the kind of comforts that meant _not_ freezing my feet off while hunting around the base of a tower for the dishes and silverware I'd thrown out the window the night before. This morning, that trick didn't seem nearly as cute as it had when I was feeling too lazy to rinse off anything. Neither did blowing up the Boom Factory. It had hot water, after all, and I could have rigged up a shower.

I found the pot, the dish, the mug, the spoon, and the knife. That was enough for me; the fork could bugger off for all I cared. I went back up the stairs, to where Gracie waited, slumbering peacefully. Yeah, it was time to make some life changes, time to stop moving around so much. Cut back to moving only once a week, say.


	63. Victory!

Bruce Wayne was eating breakfast when the knock came. Alfred went to answer it, as was only proper. For once, Wayne was in his streamlined penthouse suite, eating at a decent hour and (would wonders never cease?) Rachel was sitting across from him.

He meant to make some little quip like "This isn't so bad, is it? I could see doing this for the next forty years or so.", but her sad eyes stopped him.

"It's so cold in here." she said, stirring her coffee.

"It seems okay to me." He picked up his orange juice and took a swallow.

"The temperature's fine." She waved her spoon around. "It's the look of this place. All glass and steel, everything white as snow or black as night."

"I—what is it, Alfred?" Behind his apologetic butler stood—Sergeant Bullock? Detective Thien was with him. Bruce's first panicked thought was _They've figured out who I am_. _What do I do now?_

"We'd like to speak to you about a friend of yours, Mr. Wayne." Bullock thrust out a pugnacious jaw. "Miz Talia Medeiros. If you don't mind."

_Talia?_ "I—all right. In the next room, if that's all right with you."

"Fine with us." commented Bullock.

Once the door was closed, Bruce turned to the people who had no idea that they were his colleagues. "What's this all about? What's happened to Talia?"

"She's gone missing under mysterious circumstances, sir." said Detective Thien. A petite Asian-American woman with auburn streaked hair, she was an unknown quality to Batman as yet. Gordon had hand-picked her not only for the Major Crimes Unit, but to witness the bold and unprecedented swearing-in of the superhero. Therefore she must be not only honest and trustworthy but also very good at her job. "When was the last time you saw or spoke to her?"

"I last saw her about—fifteen hours ago, that's when I left her house. I called her a couple of hours later. What mysterious circumstances?"

"You haven't turned on the news yet today, have ya?" asked the burly sergeant. "Cause if you did you'd have heard about the three bodies that was fished out of the storm drain by her townhouse complex last night."

"Was she one of them?" Bruce felt the blood drain from his face. Talia—who had been so loving, so giving. Who had loved him…

"No. All three were male." Thien answered. "We believe they may have been working for the Joker, as clown masks were found on the bodies. They had been dead between twenty-four and thirty-six hours when they were found."

"That's terrible, but how is that connected to Talia?"

"When the bodies was found, they were all tangled up in big pieces of blood-stained carpet that matches the remnants outta the dumpster which was full up of all the old stuff your girlfriend had torn outta her place yesterday. You noticed she was doing some impulse redecorating?" Bullock took his turn. This wasn't good cop/bad cop so much as it was old school/new school.

"Did you notice anything strange yesterday when you visited her house, sir?" Thien persisted.

"No, I—Yes." He remembered the bloody bit of flesh from the stairs. "Yes, I did. There was a spot of blood and a—a bit of somebody's fingertip on the stairs going down to the media room. Not a big piece, it was mostly skin, as if someone'd been careless with the manicure scissors."

"How did she explain how somebody's fingertip came to be lying around on her stairs, Mr. Wayne?" Bullock asked, a hint of a jeer in his voice.

"She said one of the workmen had an accident with his bandsaw." _And I knew she was lying_.

"Uh-huh." said Bullock. "Mr. Wayne, do you mind if we sit down? This could take a while…"

* * *

Elsewhere:

While the water was heating up for my coffee, I booted up my laptop and looked for a news site. Grace was still asleep, and her shoes were still where I had placed them.

The first webcast that loaded was Commissioner Gordon talking all about these sites which had hidden content that might be the trigger for the suicides, so avoid them as much as possible, blah-blah-blah-blah. Not a word about _my_ contribution, _again_!!! What did a clown have to _do_ around this town to make people recognize what he was doing for the common good? Next time, I was going to have to _insist_ he say something, or else. Or else what? I pondered that while I spooned instant coffee crystals and sugar into my mug.

Anyhow, it wouldn't do any good. The moment the prime mover behind this little scheme realized his websites had been compromised, he'd change the sites—or change to a different medium. That's what I would do.

Next came a missing-person announcement. "The Gotham City Police Department has asked us to revisit the case of Cordelia Diane Witt. Ms. Witt has been missing for over a year now…" They went on about her vital statistics and where she worked, all of that. I was semi-interested because despite her name, Cory-to-her-friends was Asian, and pretty damn hot with it, too. A mouth like hers could definitely give a man what Grace would call 'hentai thoughts'. Cory Witt looked like she might have some sass to her, too.

The water was boiling, and I turned away from the laptop to take care of it, nearly spilling the kettle when I heard Grace's voice _coming from the laptop speaker_.

I did a double-take to make sure she was still asleep. She hadn't moved, and I didn't think she was putting me on. I put the kettle down and started the video segment again.

It was file footage, according to the caption, an interview with the Gotham City PBS channel's local arts and entertainment feature reporter, Marcellus Baxter. He was a young black man with short dreads and a goatee.

"Hello, Gotham City Artswatch viewers! Today, we're here with Cordelia Witt, and she's going to tell us about the exciting film series that the Brackenbury Museum of Asian Art will be showing this summer. You prefer Cory, though, don't you?"

"I'll take Miss Witt when I can get it, but Cory's all right with me." She softened her barb with a smile. "I'm very glad to be here, thank you."

"Allll right." That zinger hadn't gone completely over the reporter's head, but he moved on. "What's the program going to be this summer?"

"This year the series is called One Hundred Ghosts of Summer. It's going to showcase the best supernaturally-themed Asian films of the last hundred years, from a very rare theatrical performance filmed in Japan in 1905 to the phenomenally popular anime Bleach, based on the manga by Tite Kubo." I studied her face. So that was Grace…Maybe. Probably. She was darker than I thought she'd be, from what I could see of her skin as she was now, but none of her features contradicted what I'd glimpsed the night before.

"A hundred ghosts, a hundred years." repeated Baxter. "One ghost per year, is that it?" he joked.

"Well, some years you have a ghost shortage while others you have a surplus. It all averages out over time." she said with a perfectly straight face, but a dimple lurked in her cheek. "Seriously, though. There's a direct line of descent from the Noh Theater plays such as Lady Oiwa's Revenge to the J-Horror movies of today, and to show that, we'll be showing films from Japan in pairs, one classic film and one contemporary film, every Friday night and every Saturday and Sunday afternoon through June.

"In July, the focus of the series expands outward to encompass films from South Korea and China, while in August you can expect to see films from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Phillipines."

"Noh Theater, huh?" Baxter mugged for the camera, "Sounds like the off-season in Gotham. We have 'no theater' then, too!"

"If you think that's bad, then what about the poor actors?" Grace/Cory returned. "When they'd go out for a drink after a performance and somebody asked them what they did, they'd have to say, 'Oh, we're Noh actors!' Then some wit would jump in and say, 'You're damn right you're 'no actors'! After that last performance, I want my money back!'" Oh, yeah. Make no mistake, that was my sassy girl.

Marcellus Baxter looked like he'd bitten a lemon. I guess nobody was supposed to be funnier than _he_ was on _his_ show. "Ba-dum-bump." He imitated a drum cue. "Moving along, can you give us more specifics about the films you'll be showing?"

"Of course. Of the classic films, one of those most familiar to American audiences will be Rashomon."

"Right." Baxter seized control of the interview again. "Kurosawa's masterpiece about the malleable nature of truth. Four different people give their differing accounts of a rape and murder, one of them being the ghost of the murdered man."

"I can tell you're familiar with it." Grace/Cory—she would always be Grace or Gracie to me—smiled at him. "The other will be Kwaidan, an anthology film of several classic ghost stories."

"What about the films that are more 'today'?" Baxter asked.

"You may have noticed there are a lot of films coming out of Hollywood with girls who look like this—." Suddenly Gracie/Cory thrust her head forward so her hair flopped over her face. Hunching her shoulders, (Which also deepened her cleavage. Under her conservative suit, she was wearing a hot pink bra trimmed with black lace.) she glared around the studio set with one baleful eye.

"Girl, you are scaring me! Stop that!" Marcellus put his hands on his hips, teasing her.

They _knew_, I realized. This segment wasn't chosen at random, because if all they wanted to do was help identify her, why would they show such a long feature? The Gotham PD knew Grace was Cordelia Witt, and this was a message—none too subtle a message at that—to let her and anyone who ran into her know what they knew. But how would she find out, if I didn't tell her? I could control, to a certain extent, what she was exposed too, and I wasn't sure I wanted her to get all worked up over this. As it was, she relied on me, and I wanted to keep it that way. But how to conceal something from a mind-reading ghost?

The interview had continued while I was thinking. "—while admission is completely free, seating is limited. Oh, and unless there's a specific statement otherwise online or in the brochure, please assume all these films are rated PG-13 or above. While there's little or no sexual content, violence or gore, especially in comparison to Hollywood horror movies, they are very frightening." Gracie warned the viewers.

"So don't bring the kiddies?" Marcellus asked.

"Unless you want them climbing in bed with you when they have nightmares." She quirked an eyebrow. "Please also note that there is no eating or drinking inside the museum, but I'd be happy to recommend where to go for the very best of your choice of Asian cuisines, no matter what you're in the mood for." If there had been any doubt left in my mind that Cory Witt was Grace, that would have squashed it like a bug. Asian horror movies _and_ Asian food? There couldn't be two like her in Gotham City.

"Well, thank you, Cory. Remember, folks, the One Hundred Ghosts of Summer will be haunting the Brackenbury Museum of Asian Art every Friday night and every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from the beginning of June through the end of August, and it's absolutely free. Come on out and get your creep on!" There the segment ended.

I was conflicted, _again_. On the one hand, I was…kind of proud of her, because there she was on camera, being funny and sexy and smart for all of Gotham to see, and then I was also mad, because how _dare_ she be funny and sexy and smart for _anybody_ but _me_? Never mind that not only hadn't we met yet, she was still alive when this was shot. Hey, I am _the Joker_, okay? I don't _have_ to make sense.

Then there came a news item that had me howling, "Oh, no! I do not believe it! I just don't believe it!"

'What?' Grace finally stirred, rolling over in her bedroll.

"They found the bodies! They found the freaking bodies!"

'Which bodies?' She sat up. 'You leave a lot of bodies. Wherever you go, there's gonna be bodies to find.'

"Weepy, Droopy and Lazy, that's who! The bodies from Xena the Warrior Princess' place. _And_ she's disappeared."

'You mean I won!' With a whoop of joy, she sprang up and started doing a little victory dance around the tower. 'Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! In your face!! I rule, you drool!'

Looking at her (today her flannel pajamas had soap bubbles and rubber duckies on them), I felt—kind of sick, in my stomach, because when this ended, and it _would_ end, because nothing good ever lasted, I knew I could never look at a girl with hair like hers again. I'd have to turn my head and look away.

What was she doing to me?

* * *


	64. Mud

A/N: I screwed up. Last chapter I included, at the end, a review of Joker by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, but in writing it I missed a major plot point. (If you never saw the review, it's because I removed it before you read it.)

The Joker, Croc and other gang members rape Jonny's wife. It doesn't happen on the page, so it's implied rather than shown directly, which is why it slipped by me. I therefore retract and apologize for the positive recommendation, because between the rape and the drug abuse I think this graphic novel goes OOC for the Joker. Thank you to those who pointed out my error.

* * *

'A while', in Bruce's case, was about fifteen minutes, and he felt as though he had been wrung out until every drop of information about Talia had been extracted from his brain.

The shameful part was how little he actually knew about her.

'_Where was she from?'_

'_Greece, I think. She had a Greek name.'_

'_Then why was she traveling with a passport from Kazakhstan?'_

'_I don't know.'_

'_What was the source of her income?'_

'_I don't know.'_

'_How much was her income per month?'_

'_I don't know. She was never short of funds.'_

'_Did you know that she was leasing her townhouse for the sum of one dollar a month?'_

'_No, I didn't know that.'_

'_Was she an associate of the Joker's?'_

'_No!'_

'_How do you know?'_

'_Because I know her!'_

'_I beg your pardon, sir, but you don't seem to have known her that well.'_

He returned to the breakfast table to find Rachel awaiting him anxiously.

"Is everything all right, Bruce?" Rachel asked.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "A friend—a girlfriend—may be in some kind of trouble." It was too much to try and process at the moment. He turned to something which was less personal. "Look, I have a question to ask you. What would make a woman jump up out of her chair in a restaurant, her meal half eaten, and leave without her purse?"

"Was she sick?" Rachel asked.

"No." Bruce replied.

"Then you'll have to give me some context here." She sat forward.

"All right…" He explained how they had identified 'Grace' as Cory Witt, including the televised arts feature on the Hundred Ghosts of Summer. Halfway through, Alfred entered, then excused himself only to return once more with his laptop.

"So she disappeared on Fear Night." Rachel mused. "And she hasn't been seen or heard of until she reappeared in the company of the Joker. Well, the obvious explanation is that he abducted her, and he's been keeping her someplace."

"I have reason to believe that isn't the case," Bruce grimaced. Explaining that 'Grace' or 'the Grudge' was actually Cordelia Witt's ghost wasn't something he was looking forward to. "The question still is, what made her run out like that?"

"I may have a possible answer to that, sir, if I might take the liberty." Alfred looked up from his computer. "Miss Witt was an enthusiastic restaurant critic, albeit an amateur one. When I say 'amateur', I mean someone who does something out of love rather than for monetary considerations, as her writing style was thoroughly professional and her palate for Asian foods, exceptionally discerning."

"I thought Chinese people never ate in Chinese restaurants." Rachel commented. "I don't know if she was Chinese or not, but wouldn't that still hold?"

"That depends on the restaurant." Alfred smiled. "Speaking as one who spent some time in Asia, I can tell you that the food one will find in the average take-out Chinese restaurant bears the same resemblance to true Chinese cooking that the Egg Mcmuffin bears to Eggs Benedict. It is all a question of where one goes. For example, in her opinion the best sushi bar in Gotham City is neither Ginza or Raw, which are the most fashionable places, but a small eatery called Yankumi's Bento Box, located in a small strip mall on Arbor street.

"She posted a blog of where she ate and what, often adding where she planned to go next. It had quite a popular following, to judge by the comments and replies posted after each entry. Anyone who subscribed to her blog would know her itinerary in some detail. The last entry states that she planned to visit 'Sunyoung's Kimchi Bowl' for dinner on the night she disappeared. There is only one eatery by that name in Gotham City, sir. It is located in the Narrows, around the corner from Arkham Asylum. In fact, from the front window of Sunyoung's, one can see the Asylum's service gate—which means she could see whoever might be coming or going."

"So you think she saw someone she was afraid of, like a stalker. Someone who read her blog and knew where she was going." Bruce asked.

"No." Rachel disagreed before Alfred could get a word in. "No woman would leave under those circumstances, especially without her purse. She'd stay in the restaurant, where there are plenty of other people, and she'd either call the police or the biggest, brawniest male friend she had for help. No.

"What about this—it was Fear Night, so the toxin was already in the water. She goes into the Kimchi Bowl with her friend, and they get a table. What's the first thing the waiter usually does in an Asian place? He or she brings them a pot of hot tea. Hot, _steaming_ tea. She's a serious Asian food fan, so she holds her cup and smells her tea, breathing in the toxin along with the steam." Rachel held her mug of coffee up to her nose, demonstrating. "Once she starts hallucinating, she panics and runs out into the street, leaving her purse behind."

"I am afraid I have to point out a flaw in your scenario, Miss Rachel. If there was a sufficient concentration of toxin in the tea-water to cause hallucinations, then there would have been more than enough to incapacitate the entire kitchen staff, between the dishwashers and the water used in cooking. Kitchens are steamy places."

"Oh." Rachel set her mug back down. "Well, I still say it wasn't because she thought she was in danger from someone outside. If she saw someone with a gun, she'd hit the floor or call the police, maybe both. If she thought she was in danger of being abducted, she'd call the police or a friend. If she saw someone being mugged, she'd call the police. The only reason I'd run out like that would be if I saw someone I loved being held hostage or something…You don't suppose that could be it?"

"Like who?" Bruce asked. "Her mother was dead and she wasn't that close to her father, according to what her friend said. She was single at the time she disappeared, and from all accounts, she didn't date casually. All that was in the police report. Her most recent ex-boyfriend had a perfect alibi, as he's teaching English in Okinawa. She didn't have any brothers or sisters, and she was childless."

"Her adoptive family was gone, for all intents and purposes," agreed Alfred. "but in her blog archives, there are entries about her search for her roots, for her birth family. She was adopted from…Bhutan." He raised his head to look at his employer. "If I recall correctly, that was where you trained—and where the raw materials for the fear toxin come from."

"Not to mention the architect of the plot." Bruce agreed, his mind working furiously. "Did she find her birth family?" he asked.

"I'm still skimming through her entries, sir… Yes. However, what she found was more her extended family than any immediate family… her mother died giving birth to her, or shortly afterwards. Her mother had gone to the capitol, Thimphu, to work in a hotel, and returned to her village pregnant. Her father is unknown, but her great-uncle heard rumors the married hotel owner took liberties with female staff…

"It was some distance to the nearest hospital, so the immediate family— in this case, her mother's grandmother— left the baby there while she tried to make arrangements, but she seems to have been overwhelmed. When an American couple, the Witts, expressed an interest in adopting the infant, she agreed. Ah, here we are. Her thoughts on meeting her extended family for the first time, complete with photographs of her many cousins."

"Does it sound as though it was a positive experience?" Rachel asked.

"Very positive. She returned to Bhutan twice for visits and kept up an e-mail correspondence with several of them."

"Can I have a look?" Alfred turned the computer so that his employer and his guest could see the pages. There was a strong family resemblance among them, especially around the nose and mouth, a certain squareness of the chin. "All these cousins look so young…" Rachel commented. Most were in their teens or younger, in fact.

"Most of the population of Bhutan is under twenty-five, thanks to improvements in sanitation and health care." Bruce remembered. "I think the average life expectancy was somewhere in the sixties, so there's been a real baby boom over the last generation of Bhutani."

"Okay, I know I'm reaching here, but suppose Cory saw one of her cousins, or someone she thought was her cousin, going in Arkham's service gate?" Rachel asked. "Someone she knew from Bhutan, anyway, someone she cared about. If I was sitting in a restaurant and I saw someone I _knew_ should be on the other side of the world, a relative who's younger than I am, maybe even so young they're still a minor—_that_ might make me forget my meal and my purse to run out after that person. Especially since she kept in touch with her family—she would know if any of them were visiting Gotham City."

"Is it possible, Master Wayne?" Alfred looked to Bruce. "You trained with them; did they recruit among the local youth? And would they have brought such a young recruit with them on a mission such as that?"

"I—." Bruce racked his brain. "Yes, there were some young recruits who might have been local. There were so many different languages spoken there, not just in the Temple of the Blue Flower, but in Bhutan itself, that it was impossible to tell. They had it hard, much harder than I did. I remember I saw them carrying water, scrubbing laundry, fetching tea…they gave the recruits funny names, to remind them of their place, I know not all the recruits made it. Some died, and some stayed servants.

"As to whether they would have brought a minor along—I don't know."

* * *

The minor in question, the youth known as Mud, was in an undisclosed location across Gotham City. Because the Master's daughter had to stay there too, now, practically everyone had been bumped to another room or forced to double up to free up a suitable space for her, and he was no exception. Worse, he was in disgrace, so he had the draftiest spot on the floor and the greasiest pots to scrub. That was what he was doing right now: scrubbing pots.

Wracked with grief, guilt, and anger, he thought fulminating thoughts about Master Gotebei, who was going to be cremated that day. Master Gotebei would be honored and remembered. Master Gotebei's picture would go on the altar, and people would burn incense for him along with the other elders, pouring a glass of spirit for his spirit and leaving him oranges on special days. No rite would be skipped for him, even though he had both killed and taught others how to kill, which was still a sin no matter what anybody said. Master Gotebei's spirit would rest comfortably and quietly; he would have no _reason_ to come back as a ghost.

Not like…no, he wouldn't think of that. He wouldn't remember her.

He wouldn't remember how she had run up to Qain, despite the fact that he was twice her size, saying _what do you mean he's here with family I know his family I **am** his family_—

He wouldn't remember how Qain had seized her hair and bounced her head off the wall—

He wouldn't remember how Qain had told him she was fine, just in an out-of-the-way place so she couldn't raise an alarm—

He wouldn't remember how Qain had laughed when he asked the huge man if she could be let out now that it was over—

And he especially wouldn't remember what he saw when he rolled the barrel off the sump pump lid, pried the lid off, and looked inside.

_her eyes were white like a cooked fish's her skin was peeling off in strips and her mouth was open forever in a soundless scream she was dead she'd boiled to death and it was his fault_

The problem with not remembering things you didn't want to remember was that you couldn't get them out of your head. Ever.


	65. Apartment Hunting

It's hard to find a nice place to rent in Gotham City when you're a supervillain.

I closed my phone and shook my head. "Rob a bank or two, blow up, uh, _one_ little hospital, kill a dozen cops, and it doesn't matter _how_ big a security deposit you're willing to put down, they won't even give you a tour." I complained to Grace while packing up what I was leaving behind in the tower.

'I would have thought you'd know better than to try.' was her tart reply.

I ignored that. "Aren't there laws against discrimination in housing? Even criminally insane murderers have rights, you know." I continued my complaint while I rolled up my sleeping bag.

'I think they're thinking of their own rights and how having you in their housing complex might infringe upon them. You know, the whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing. You've been known to deprive people of all three.' She pointed out.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response. Uh, fortunately I have other resources. Namely, a guy named Pom." I stowed the bag in the chest and pulled out my phone again.

'Who's Pom?' she asked.

"Pom is a go-to guy. He fences the stuff that's hard to move, lines up jobs for the small fry, locates specialty items for people with the cash. Things like that. He's a neutral. Nobody gives him a hard time because it's not so easy to find someone who can market a hot Vermeer. Artworks are perishable; five or six years being traded back and forth by a drug cartel as collateral, and they fall apart. Nobody'll give you jack for a handful of paint chips and a canvas rag. He likes to find them permanent homes before that."

'And one of the specialty items he can find is housing?' she asked skeptically.

"It's worth a shot."

His phone was ringing, and in a moment he answered. "Hello. You've reached Denison's Party Supplies. How can I help you?" That was how he always answered the phone.

"Hello, Pom."

"Who is this—is it you—?" He was about to say a name I used to go by, but I cut him off.

"It's the Joker, these days. I'm, uh, in the market for some temporary housing, Pom. Something more than just a roof over my head. The average Motel 6 is better than where I've been staying lately. I want hot and cold running water, central heat and air, a decent bed and a private bath with at least a shower stall. Security and privacy are also a concern of mine. I want to rest easy at night knowing that my head will still be on my shoulders in the morning. Price, of course, is no object. Can you make my dreams come true?"

"How long do you want it for?"

"My plans are always fluid, but for you I'll make an exception. A week or two, maybe longer if my needs are met."

"Okay…" I heard papers shuffling and a keyboard clicking in the background. "When do you want to move in?"

"Today. That is not negotiable."

"Oh. That's too bad. I can do you short-term with everything you want, but it'll take at least two-three days to get set up right, or I could do you longer term and move you in by noon, no problem, but not both."

"Why not? You don't want to destroy my confidence in you, Pom, you really don't." I imagined him on the other end of the line as he was when I saw him last: sharp nose, sharp eyes, kind of a human ferret.

"Well, if you want the security, that means new doors and other work on any of the places that would be available short term. The place that's only long term is—only long term. You'd have to pay for a year up front, cash, and they want a mile of green, too. One million."

"One million?" I scoffed. "What kind of a place is that? I want to _rent_ it, not _buy_ it."

"It'd be worth it, believe me. You mentioned Motel Six; this is more like the Ritz-Carlson. Maid service, laundry, valet service, all included. They'll even buy you food and liquor if you comp them for it. Private entrance, private elevator, fully furnished, everything."

"I sense you are trying to sell me on this." I shifted the phone to my other ear while I surveyed the money stash in the bottom of the chest. Grace hovered, listening in. "What's your interest in this?"

"Ten percent from them for finding a suitable tenant and not telling the IRS."

"And where is this place?"

"It's on 92nd St, but I'm not saying where. It's an old rooming house. You'd have the top floor to yourself. It's like a studio apartment, a big one. Only one room, but with a kitchenette and a big bathroom."

"Who else occupies this house?" I inquired. With the cash I'd brought along from the Boom Factory and the stash here, I could swing it without having to make a withdrawal from a handy bank or go out of my way to raid another stash. I didn't care what it cost; the convenience of just getting a place, no muss, no fuss, no paperwork, would be worth it.

"There's the family that owns it. They have the basement flat. Then there'd be whatever working stiffs they rent out the other rooms to, that's all. Nobody would know you were there."

"What's the catch?" There is always a catch.

"Well…it was fixed up like that back in the fifties by this businessman, an executive VP of some company whose hobby was philandering, but a lot of his assets were in his wife's name for tax purposes. So he couldn't get caught, or he'd be out more than three-quarters of what he owned. No hotels for him. And he liked variety in his ladyfriends, too. Lots of variety. So he bought this house and fixed it up so nobody could catch him. Kind of a private passion pit."

"Get to the point, Pom." I interrupted.

"There aren't any windows. That bothers a lot of people if they're living there long term. It was only meant to be occupied twelve, fifteen hours a week."

"You're speaking to a man who's been in a padded cell for months. The, uh, lack of windows is the least of my concerns. What else?"

"What with his hobbies, there's what you might call some…specialty furniture on the premises, and it's bolted down. You can keep a sheet over it, though."

'Specialty furniture?' Grace asked.

"Specialty furniture?" I passed along.

"Uh, yeah. A trone d'amour, which is French for a 'throne of love'. The rest of the furniture is normal, and the bed is real nice. Eight feet square, and you don't have to use the cords for anything if you don't want to. They could be decorative."

'I have _got_ to see this place.' Grace said, fascinated. 'It sounds like a hentai palace.'

"Okay. So there's no windows and an obscene sofa or something, plus built-in bondage gear. What else?"

"Well, the décor is…Actually, you might really go for it. It's unique. Not like a whorehouse or nothing. He put a bundle into the place, and the family kept it up, reupholstering and painting and all."

'I trust they've replaced the mattress since the fifties.' Grace commented.

"How old is the mattress?" I asked.

"I think they replaced it four, five years ago. I can find out."

"Any other hitches?" I inquired.

"When Bobo Gundersohn trashed it back in 1985, they changed the lock and wouldn't let him back in. And while they'll get the groceries and liquor, any drugs or…company you want, you'll have to get yourself. As long as you have the cash, there's no other hitch."

"Understood. When can I see it?"

"Um, they'll want some warning…what time is it now?"

"Seven fifty-three." I told him. "And I will be bringing a friend. A lady friend."

"Uh-huh. I saw her on the news, that was one of the things that made me think of this place. How about ten?"

"How about nine-thirty? I want to be free before eleven." Eleven forty-five was when the next wave of suicides would probably begin, and I wanted to be glued to the news when it came.

"Okay. Here's where I'll meet up with you, if that's okay." He reeled off an intersection.

"Fine—but a word of advice. If you're even thinking about setting me up—remember Frank Venturelli."

"Ummm…Oh. He was the guy they had to identify by DNA."

"Yeah. And they had to scrape it off the walls of the building, too."

I ended the call and turned around. "Okay, sassy girl—whoa! You are looking _extra_ sassy today." She looked expensive. Very expensive.

She posed, showing off an ensemble that might have started off as a ski outfit, with a sporty down jacket in shiny green material with fur lining, but the knee-high hot pink crocodile boots with laces up the front and flared high heels had never seen a ski in their lives. Her hat, scarf and gloves were cream-colored, lacy, ruffled and fuzzy, and her cream-colored knee length skirt was suede with fur trim.

While I watched, she opened her pink crocodile handbag, took out a jeweled compact, and powdered her nose, or as much of it as showed through the part in her hair. 'Well, if you're taking me to see a private passion pit which is going to cost a million a year, I want to look like the kind of girl who demands that kind of setting.'

"I'd say you achieved your goal. You look like a million a year would only be a drop in the bucket toward keeping you in the style you deserve."

'Why, thank you. That was exactly the look I was hoping for.' Taking out a lipstick, she crayoned her lush lips a glossy hot pink.

"You've got the illusion down really well." I complimented her. "The cosmetics and the purse are the perfect touch."

'Glad you think so.' she said—except she'd turned the compact around so the mirror faced me. Her mouth and chin were still reflected in it, not me or the wall behind me. It was those lips which spoke and smiled, not the ones on her face.

"Now _that's_ spooky." I nodded. "_Now_ we're talking!"

On the drive to meet Pom, I looked down at the Shoes, now disguised as platform crocodile boots. "Uh, by the way—did you put your little pets over on my side last night?"

'No. Why?'

"You're telling me the truth, right? No joking?"

'No joke. Cross my heart and hope to die—Poor choice of words. No. I put them down by my feet. Honest."

"Well, they were less than a foot away from my head when I woke up, and _I_ didn't move during the night. How often do they need to eat?"

'I have no clue. They didn't come with a care and feeding manual, unfortunately.'

"Too bad. Do they eat anything other than human feet?"

'Again, no clue. We could try them on raw beef—oxtail, maybe. Something with bone in it.'

"I will buy them an entire cow if that'll make them happy—and keep them from staring at me during the night."

'How can they stare at you? They don't have any eyes!'

"I don't know—but I know staring when I see it."


	66. Have Your Cake And Eat It, Too

A/N: Since someone expressed an interest, I thought you might like to know who I would cast as Grace in the movie of Can't Get You Out Of My Head. (Since this is clearly in the realm of fantasy, Heath will be alive to play the Joker/Jay.)

**Eugenia Yuan**, who has J-Horror creds from playing the main ghost in The Eye 2 and comedy experience from indie films such as Mail Order Wife, would be my choice. You can look her up on IMDB, (which is what I'm doing now). According to them, she was born in California, speaks three dialects of Chinese, English, Spanish and Russian, and was once on the US Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics team. Plus, her mom is a martial arts movie legend who was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. How much cooler can you get?

* * *

Grace: There had been an ice storm the night before, which made the city prettier but more hazardous and had left quite a few people without power. It also meant that Jay wasn't heavily dressed enough, which worried me. At least he had that wild purple plaid overcoat which Sol, his tailor, had very thoughtfully foreseen he would need. It differed from his usual jacket only in that the overcoat was heavier and large enough to fit over the jacket. That was good, as he was shivering in the cold morning air even with the heavier coat on. He had gloves, of course, but no hat or scarf.

What would I do if he got sick? I couldn't do the things for him that he would need, like bringing him blankets, making chicken soup, and concocting remedies for his cold.

(My cold remedy was a kill-or-cure proposition. Hot tea with freshly grated ginger and honey so thick the spoon—well, the spoon didn't quite stand up in the cup after I stirred it, but it toppled over very slowly. Everybody I'd ever prepared it for said they felt a lot better after they drank it, possibly so I wouldn't make them drink another dose. Ever again. As long as they lived.)

Thinking about him getting sick and being unable to take care of him made something soft twist up and hurt inside me. Not physically, of course, but emotionally. I wasn't just getting attached to him, I was attached to him. More than literally.

This couldn't be good.

At least the SUV's heater was working. I could feel the warmth soaking into the bones I didn't technically have, and—wait. I_ could_ feel the warmth. I could _feel_ it.

Unless it was my imagination, like when I had thought I could almost feel my skirt on the day we visited the modeling agency. 'Jay?' I asked, 'would you say it was warm in here?'

"Uh—I don't know about warm," he replied. "Unless you're talking relative to what it is outside. But it's getting there. Why, uh, do you ask?"

'Because I think I feel it.' I had to grin at him.

"But you're not sure. Do you want me to roll down a window to test it?" he asked.

'Why bother?' I stuck my right hand through the closed and locked door without a hitch, so I was as insubstantial as ever. 'Yes.' I said. 'I can tell the difference. I can't feel the door itself, but I can tell there's a temperature change between the inside and the outside. I can feel something!' Last night, I had perhaps recovered a memory, and now this!

My moment of rejoicing was cut short by another sensation.

'—and right now I can feel something cold touching what I think of as my left knee.'

Looking, I saw Jay had pulled off his glove and was trying to grope my leg with his cold-reddened hand. 'Hentai!'

"Well-heh-heh-ell, sassy girl." he leered, "every day, you're another little step closer to real, it seems. I like these, uh, little developments."

'Better watch it,' I warned him. 'because one of these days, _you_ might have to put up or shut up.' I mentally unzipped my jacket to reveal the scoop-necked pink cashmere sweater I was imagining underneath it, and leaned toward him to show off how low the neck scooped and what was holding it up. (When you're making yourself up as you go along, you might as well do it right and give yourself some goodies.)

"Oh-ho-ho." he chuckled, taking in the view. As he'd told me a few days ago, he was a man and he _had_ to look, which was why he crumpled the bumper slightly on the Jersey barrier dividing the lanes on 89th St. "Damn it, Gracie, why do you always turn on the heat when I don't have the time?" he swore, swerving back into the correct lane.

'Because it's fun, not to mention keeping the rating PG-13.' I smiled at him.

"You." he observed, "are _evil_."

'Where do you think I get it from?' I countered. 'Are we there yet?'

"Almost. Will you sit up and behave yourself until then?"

'Spoilsport.' I did, though, and soon he made a turn, then another.

'Well, today your makeup is serving a dual purpose.' I told him cheerfully, as he pulled over to the intersection where he was meeting Pom. 'It'll protect your face from windburn and frostbite.'

"Heh." He chuckled. "Well, I'm glad that can't happen. I wouldn't want anything to spoil _this_ handsome face, after all."

'Handsome is as handsome does.' I zinged him back. 'I have to decline the invitation to your pity party, sorry. Am I staying here in the car while you get him, or are we riding with him?'

"I'm going to fetch him." Jay said, buttoning up his coat and pulling the lapels up around his face.

As he was getting out, I threw after him, 'I'm glad you didn't drive with your head out the window today, or you'd have booger icicles hanging off your nose right now!'

He shook his head. "Oh, that's real classy humor there, sassy girl. Sit tight, and I'll be right back."

So I stayed in the SUV while Jay collected Pom, who was a medium-sized white guy who looked like he never saw much sun. Pom got in the back while Jay slipped behind the wheel again, and goggled at me for a moment. I considered either turning my head all the way around, Exorcist style, or morphing my face to the other side of my head, just to see what he would do, but I restrained myself.

It was a short trip to the actual rooming house with the private passion pit on the premises, and to my inexpert eye, the security on the place was pretty damn tight. The building had a twenty-four hour convenience store on the ground level which Pom hadn't mentioned, (perhaps that was why the family which owned the place was so willing to provide shopping services). To anyone watching, it would look as if we were simply slipping into the store through the side entrance, when in fact we were going through a door to the right of it.

Then we went down half a flight of stairs, where a heavier security door awaited Pom's keys. There was a narrow concrete corridor leading to an elevator behind the door, and the elevator, too, required a key. "There's heavy bolts on the inside of this door," Pom pointed out as he shut it, "You could keep out the world, if you wanted to."

"Oh, I'd want to." Jay said. He had brought the million along with him in a duffel bag, since leaving it in a car on 92nd St. was out of the question, and so he had to schlep it. He looked around as Pom unlocked the elevator. "I'm not seeing anything wrong here so far, but then we're not really there yet, are we?"

It was a perfectly ordinary elevator, from what I could tell when the doors opened, and it had only two buttons inside, since it made no stop between the basement and the fourth floor.

When it opened, my vision was warped and stunned by the sight of the foyer. Not for the first time, I wished I could blink. Black and white zebra stripe wallpaper…black and white checkerboard floor…mirrors reflecting and multiplying the stripes and squares.

'My eyes!' I exclaimed.

"Yeah, it is a little…" Pom waved a hand.

"It's not a little anything." Jay said. "It's a lot. Not bad, though."

Once we stepped out of the foyer, the visual effect calmed down a lot. While the wallpaper remained just as wild and zebra striped as before, the solid colors on the floor, upholstery, and the bed cover soothed the eyes, especially the carpeting, which was a sort of peacock blue-green shade. Indirect lighting made it possible for us to see, and I could hear the hum of artificial air circulation.

The room itself was at least forty feet long and probably twenty feet wide, which allowed for a three piece living room suite clustered around a coffee table at the end nearest us. It consisted of an olivine sofa and two love seats, one royal purple and one in a color which was too dark to be pink and too pink to be red, so I would have to call it rose. The style was pure Eisenhower-era, right off the set of Mad Men. A dry bar and a stereo system awaited any swingin' hep cats and dolls who might fancy a martini and some Perry Como.

A little further down was a dining room table for four, which made me wonder if the unnamed business man had liked to entertain groups. The Riveras, (according to Pom, they were the owners) had clearly gone to some effort to freshen up the place and welcome their prospective tenants, because the air smelled clean, with a hint of polish. Also, a large vase of tulips brightened up the table in shades of pink, purple, and yellow-green, the kind with shredded-looking, ruffled petals. Parrot tulips, I think they're called.

Pom, meanwhile, was loitering in the foyer, but his greenish eyes were taking in everything we did and his ears were stretching to capture anything that we said. The underworld of Gotham was going to get an earful tonight, I would bet.

Jay was strolling around the room, too, and now he stepped behind a screen which looked out of place. "Is _this_ by chance the specialty furniture, Pom?" he lazily inquired.

I went over to see a mysterious sheet-shrouded object, and Pom came over to join us there. For a moment we all regarded it in silence

'Well, don't leave me in suspense!' I teased them. 'Won't you do the honors, Pom?'

With a theatrical flourish, he ripped the sheet away to reveal…a double-decker gynecologist's table, complete with stirrups. Except a GYN's examination table wasn't usually made of hardwood and bronze, and it wouldn't have a cushioned velvet kneeler in front of it either. It was meant for use by two women and one man at the same time, although I suppose one woman and one man could use it, too.

I couldn't help it; I started giggling while I tried to choke out, 'Well, would you _look_ at that? The perfect Christmas gift….for the man…. who wants to… have his cake….and eat it, too!'

"Gracie-gal, I could not have put it better myself." Jay shook his head, regarding the construct. "Pom, how old was the original tenant when he died, and what killed him?"

"He was seventy-three, and he died right here in this apartment, while doing something called 'the Lithuanian Typewriter' with a pair of…ambidextrous cuties."

"'The Lithuanian Typewriter'?" Jay shook his head again. "Never heard of it."

'I have.' I lied. 'and it does take at least three, of whatever genders you like. At least one of them has to have tremendous upper body strength, though…'

Pom gaped at me. "Jeesus," he swore. "How did you learn—?"

"She's making it up." Jay brushed it off.

'Says you.' I gave him a secret smile. 'So this is the bed…' I left the trone d'amour and walked over to it.

It looked more like ten feet square than eight feet square to me, and sure enough, a lot of thick silk cords hung down from the ceiling to the floor around it at the four corners. It had piles of satin pillows in olivine, purple, and rose, a peacock silk charmeuse bedspread which was folded back to reveal clean white sheets, and a chinchilla fur throw tossed over the foot of it.

I sat down on it and bounced a little, not so much that Pom would notice I had no weight or substance. 'Care to try it out with me, Jay?'

"Gladly." He threw himself back on it, wriggling his shoulders. "but right now I'll settle for just sitting on it for a moment...Not bad. What do _you_ think, sassy girl?"

'I think I haven't seen the bathroom yet.' Getting up, I looked at the two closed doors on either side of the bed. 'Is it behind door number one or door number two?' I asked Pom.

"It's the one on the left." He said. I waited, looking at him meaningfully until he caught on. Then he jumped to open it for me and turn on the light.

It alone was larger than some studio apartments. Tiled in honey-colored marble with streaks of red and black, it had a double sink, both toilet and bidet, heated towel racks, a bathtub big enough for three and a shower stall which could hold four if they were feeling friendly.

'Oh, what a shame,' I mourned playfully. 'I wanted lapis lazuli, not marble. Sorry. I refuse to live in such degraded conditions. A girl has to have standards. Your charm and sexual skills could not hold me forever.'

Jay joined me, and shook his head sadly. "That's what you get for going for a guy like me. I knew this was too good to last. I guess this is…good-bye."

Pom gaped until he realized we were joking. Then he laughed too, until it was cut short by Jay slamming him into the wall and holding a knife three centimeters from his left eye.

"Okay, Pom. If we take this place, there's no way anybody is going to be able to see or here what goes on here, is there? There won't be any, uh, little unpleasant surprises in store for us, will there? Because if I were to be disappointed in that regard, I will hunt you down and take it out of your hide. And I _am_ a man of my word."

"No—no. There's nothing. It's clean, and so are the Riveras. I swear."

"You'd better be right." Jay said, releasing him. "I'll speak to the Riveras, too, if you can satisfy me with the answer to another question I want to ask you. There are no windows here, and so far the only way in and out is by the elevator. Suppose—uh, suppose a fire were to break out while we were asleep up here, or that a mob of religious pamphleteers were to force their way past those bolts in a misplaced effort to save my soul. How would we get out safely?"

"Ther—there's a hidden exit in the kitchen." Pom tried to regain his composure. "Lemme show you." He led the way into the kitchenette.

Once we were all there, he pointed to a cabinet against the back wall. "That's it." Going over to it, he opened it. "When you open it this way, there's just shelves, see? But if you do this—." He closed it, then pried at the other side. Hinges whined in protest as the entire cabinet swung out to reveal concrete and steel safety stairs. "This is the only way in. They go all the way down to the ground floor, and the door down there only opens out. Safe as houses can get."

"I'll just have a look for myself, thanks." Jay bounded down the stairs. The sound of his feet clattering gradually died away.

'We're on the fourth floor, aren't we?' I asked. 'That's a lot of stairs to have to climb back up.'

"Yeah." I seemed to make Pom nervous. "But he's got more energy than anybody else I ever met."

'You're right about that.' I nodded.

He let out a bray of nervous laughter. "Yeah, I guess you'd know. I heard a couple of the girls, the working girls, you know? talk about him the one time. They said he never argued about the price, but did he ever make them earn it."

I just looked at him. "Not," he tried to recover himself, "that you're like them, because anybody can tell you aren't, and this is different, but, um, oh, damn."

'You're right.' I replied. 'I'm _not_ like them and this _is_ different. One of the _many_ ways that I'm not like them is that a_ lady _**never** tells.'

Pom tugged at his collar. He was sweating. "I'm sorry, Miss—Grace. Damn. Where did he dig up one like you?"

'Even if I told you, you'd never believe me.' I said, turning on the sultry. This was as much fun as scaring people. Had I been this bold and sassy when I was alive?

I could hear Jay coming back up the stairs. To his credit, he wasn't dragging his feet and gasping for oxygen. "Okay. It works." He looked from one of us to the other. "What were you talking about while I was gone?"

'The other features of the kitchen.' I replied smoothly. 'The appliances are all original, aren't they?' I asked the nervous go-to guy.

"Except the microwave." he nodded. "but they all work fine. The intercom is busted, but the Riveras have a number you can call. They'll do all the work when you aren't in, and if you want your clothes taken care of, all you have to do is leave them."

"That's fine." Jay said. "Call them up here. We'll take it."


	67. It Hardly Seems Worth The Effort

Jonathan Crane sat watching the uncut version of the Joker's modeling bureau video, which he found quite disturbing. Not the Joker's little performance; that was entirely in character, but the girl, Grace. After she made her speech about how unlikely it was that any given girl could ever become a model, he hit the pause button, to give himself time to think.

After the interview with Batman and Montoya, Crane had spent several educational hours online. (Technically, he wasn't supposed to have a private laptop, but being incarcerated in the same institution where he had once worked had advantages. He knew who to blackmail and what to blackmail them with.) He now knew all about the genre known as J-Horror which had been born out of ancient folklore and ghost stories, incubated in the theater, and finally emerged onto the movie screen. While searching online for more information about Asian horror movies in the Gotham City, he had come across the interview with Cordelia Witt.

It was perfectly obvious that Cordelia Witt and the Joker's Gracie were one and the same, despite the long hair which concealed her face. The voice was the same, as were her height, build, and body language. She was the embodiment of all the J-Horror movie tropes, even more so than the Jou-gyal Pritay. He could even recognize the pink shoes as taken from the movie Bunhongsin, thanks to various links he had followed, and not the emblems of virginity they were in the Great Valley. That was not what bothered him.

What bothered him was that she was dead.

Fear Night, at the eleventh hour, and Qain had come crashing in, dragging a young woman by the hair. She was kicking and screaming, and for a moment Crane had thought it was Rachel Dawes, because she was quite similar in build to the lovely assistant DA, but when the pair moved into a better light, he saw that he was wrong. Her skin was too beige, her hair was darker, and although her features were distorted by Qain's grip, they were not Rachel's.

Behind them trailed one of the apprentices, a boy fairly quivering with anxiety, saying "Sir—sir, please, just don't—Don't hurt her, please, sir. She's my cousin—let me talk to her, please, she won't tell, she—." Qain casually smacked the girl's head against the wall, let her fall to the ground, turned, and backhanded the boy across the face. The boy staggered back against the opposite wall.

"She bit me." Qain stated, holding up his right hand. Blood welled up from the webbing between forefinger and thumb. "Get on out of here, slime—."

"No, sir. I'm not Slime, she's with group B. I'm Mud." Although he was shaken, the youth was not cowed. Crane, who had been slight, bookish and thoroughly bullied until he was in his twenties, envied him. If only he'd had the courage to stand up for himself…

"Slime, Mud, Shit—as far as I'm concerned, you're nothing. Don't worry about your cousin. You have work to do; go and do it."

The boy looked at his cousin, who was moaning and trying to sit up. "Don't hurt her."

"Do you think she is more important than our mission?" Qain bent over and thrust his face into the boy's.

"No, sir. But she's…" the boy pleaded.

"As far as I'm concerned, I am cleaning up your mess. She came after you. If everything fails because of this, it will go hard with you. Now go." Seizing the boy by the scruff of the neck, Qain thrust him out the door.

From her place on the floor, the girl looked up at Crane and Qain. (Crane and Qain, that rhymed.) "Wha—is he doin' here?" she asked.

She had Asian features, and might have been quite attractive were it not for the damage done when Qain hit her head against the wall. Blood trickled down her face from a bruised-up cut on her forehead, and her mouth was bruised and swelling as well.

"Y' kidnapped him? Child expl'tation? Wh' are you people?" she slurred, putting her back against the wall and pushing herself to her feet by way of its support. Crane was envious once more. There was no one in his life for whom he would ever have been so concerned, no one for whom he would have stood up to Qain even while he bled. He envied her ability to _care_.

"Shut up." Qain explained, and backed up his words with a fist. She slipped back down the wall, unconscious. "Crane. I require an out-of-the-way place to put this…complication."

"Ordinarily, I'd suggest one of the cells." Crane told the huge assassin, "but as I will be unlocking them all shortly, that won't work."

"Hmm." The assassin grunted, stepping backward. His foot boomed on plastic. "What's this? It sounds hollow. The opening's pretty big, too."

"A sump pump cover."

Hooking a finger into the access hole, Qain pulled up the sturdy circle of plastic. "At least a meter and a half down. There's water at the bottom. How deep is it?"

"I don't know—this time of year, probably no more than six inches to a foot."

"Well, one can drown in a teacup as easily as in an ocean." Picking up the girl, Qain slid her down into the swampy, odorous dark. There was a splashing sound, then quiet. "Hmm. She landed sitting up. Not that it matters." He fitted the cover back into place, then looked around. "Something to keep her there even if she comes around. Ah." He rolled a barrel into place over the lid.

"You do know that connects with the city water system." Crane felt impelled to point out. "When the microwaves vaporize the water, she will be very uncomfortable for a brief time and then dead for a very long time."

"You didn't stop me from putting her in there." Qain pointed out in return. "If you want to get her out, I won't stop you."

It was a bad moment for Jonathan Crane. There was a human life at stake, and despite everything, his doctoral training and what remained of his conscience told him he ought to do something. On the other hand, he did not want to lose face in front of this man, this hardened killer, professional assassin that he was. He did not want to be seen as weak or sentimental.

Therefore, he said, simply, "It hardly seems worth the effort."

Qain grunted in approval and left. A moment later, Crane heard him tell the boy, "Your cousin's fine. I put her somewhere out of the way so she won't raise an alarm until it's all over."

As far as Crane was concerned, that had been the end of it—until a week or so later, when he revisited that part of Arkham to retrieve various supplies. At first he had wondered what that terrible stench was, and tracked it to the sump-pump. Only then did he remember. Out of scientific curiosity, he lifted the lid and had a peek before hastily closing it again. The face of a girl who had boiled to death over a week before—was no longer a face. But the black hair clinging to her head was unmistakable, and the corpse was still wearing a large brooch he had noticed when Qain brought her in, a beautifully worked circle of silver set with a turquoise of perfect robin's egg blue.

The same brooch she wore when she had been interviewed on TV, in fact.

Unless she had a twin sister—no, he had read the missing persons report, and it had stated that she had no siblings.

Cordelia Diane/ Grace/ Gracie/ the Grudge/ Witt was dead, and her body still lay undiscovered underneath Arkham Asylum.

It was her ghost which was accompanying the Joker around Gotham City, which was actually a lot more credible than that any living woman with more sense of self-preservation than would fit in a thimble would go around with him willingly.

Jonathan Crane found that deeply disturbing. He could, with difficulty, accept the idea of the existence of ghosts. Once he had accepted that, he could even believe one of the seemingly universal rules of J-Horror, which was that Violent Death + Enclosed Space + Proximity To Water = Angry, Dangerous Ghost.

Where this train of belief broke down was when it hit the roadblock of this _particular_ ghost, who was articulate and intelligent. It was one thing to believe in a ghost who wanted revenge for her horrible death and wasn't fussy about who died as a result. A ghost with a sense of humor was quite another.

Perhaps…perhaps something else had happened here. No one could deny that in the past year or so, a lot of very unusual people had appeared. Not just Batman and the Joker here in Gotham City, but Superman in Metropolis, and other, less famous ones.

He had read a paper which postulated the existence of a meta-gene carried by a small percentage of the population, a special gene which, when its carrier's life was in danger, changed that person in response, giving them whatever physical or mental powers were needed to keep them alive.

The young woman in the sump pump was _physically_ dead, that much was certain, but _metaphysically_ she was very much alive and well. If such a gene existed, if she were a carrier, that might explain why she was so coherent and rational. She wasn't actually a ghost. She was simply alive in a different way than most people.

The question was, what was she going to do? If she remembered that Crane had stood by and done nothing, if she took offense at his indifference, she might come looking for him. The best thing to do would be to leave, and be somewhere else.

He started up the video again, his equilibrium restored. It was time for him to leave Arkham Asylum, much as he would regret doing so. Escaping should not prove terribly difficult, given how well he knew the place.

However, when the three women started killing one another for Grace's shoes, his equilibrium was shot all to pieces again…


	68. Anticipation

Thirty-six hours apart. At 11:45AM on Saturday, seventy hours ago, fifty-four girls had leapt to their deaths. Fifty-four young lives full of promise, fifty-four futures gone, cut short.

At 11:45PM on Sunday, thirty-four hours ago, seventy-six nurses and nursing students had committed suicide as casually as shutting a door. Seventy-six people who had worked long and hard hours at a difficult job for too little money and less recognition.

Gone.

Now it was 9:45AM on Tuesday.

As the minutes ticked away and the fatal hour approached, Gotham City tensed up. No one in it, save perhaps a few such as Sol, the Joker's tailor and his wife Bernice, who preferred to do most of their living in the past, were immune or exempt. It showed in small ways: frayed tempers in some, unexpected generosity in others. For every person who snapped at the barista who was a little slow with that morning's latte, there was another who gave up a seat on the bus to someone who needed it more.

The questions in the mind of every citizen were: Who will it be this time? Will it be someone I know? Will it be someone I love?

Will it be me?

Parents hugged their children a little harder before they went to work. Adult sons and daughters took the time to call home and say the things they had always meant to say. Some people called in sick and hid in their own homes, trembling in fear. Others went about their usual business, pretending nothing was wrong. Some prayed. Some made love.

And then there were others...

* * *

The Joker/Jay: "I like things simple." I said to the collected Riveras. I still had a nice wad of cash, so now I peeled off another sixty thousand and slapped it down. "You're going to be doing the shopping, and you want to be comped for it, which is fine with me. Fair is fair, after all, and I'm a fair man. But fussing around with receipts and change and all that, that'll annoy the hell out of me. I can't be bothered. So—here's sixty thousand. That's five thousand a month to cover the grocery bill and what not. If there's any left over, you can keep it, it's yours. Consider it found money. But if you ever come to me and say we've gone over for the month, you better have a convincing explanation. Especially since we might well not be here a lot of the time. You get me?"

Lots of nods. There wasn't much to say about the Riveras. As their name suggested, they were Hispanic. He was about thirty-five, with clean, handsome features, while she looked about ten-fifteen years older. Although since she smelled of cigarette smoke, it might have been due to other factors than simple age.

"Also, while the hi-fi over there looks, uh, nifty, I'd like an entertainment center that was made in this century, so here's twenty thousand. Get a big screen TV, stereo, speakers, DVD, Tivo, cable box, Blu-Ray, whatever. That's about it—except to start off the grocery list, I want ten pounds of good steak, bone-in. Prime rib, rib-eye, T-bone, whatever." I was thinking of the Shoes. If they didn't care for beef, I could eat it, after all.

"And a case of good champagne." Grace added. "Moet and Chandon, if possible."

Champagne? What was she going to _do_ with it? "You heard the lady." I told them.

Once we were alone again, I asked her. "What's with the bubbly, sassy girl? Planning on getting me tipsy so's you can have your way with me? Because, uh, if that's your plan, I can see a few flaws in it."

"Oh, it's not for you." She smiled impishly. I liked being able to see her mouth; it added so much to her expressions. I liked her smile, too.

"Then who is it for?"

"Haven't you ever seen a movie where someone drank champagne out of a lady's slipper? Maybe it's because they like it."

"You're planning on getting your shoes _drunk_?" Even to me, that sounded insane. Then again, if it made them happy… "Just as long as they don't get hung over. The last thing we need around here is a pair of carnivorous shoes with a hangover. I'd bet they get mean."

* * *

Alfred was surveying the damage the ice storm had wreaked on the Wayne estate in the company of the head groundskeeper. As they passed the tower, the elderly butler frowned. "What is that there, Mr. Anderson?"

The groundskeeper stepped off the path to retrieve a small metallic object from a bed of pine needles. "Looks like a fork, Mr. Pennyworth."

He held it out to Alfred, who took it and looked at it critically. "Nothing that ever graced a Wayne table." he assessed. "It looks as if it came out of a camping kit or a picnic basket—and it has red lipstick on it. Mr. Anderson, I don't want to seem harsh or excessively restrictive, but if your staff wish to have picnics on the grounds and bring guests, there are more appropriate areas. And the least they could do is pick up after themselves." He handed it back to the other man.

"I'll pass that along, Mr. Pennyworth." Anderson tucked the piece of flatware into one of his capacious pockets, smudging off the last traces of the Joker's greasepaint as he did so.

* * *

In the hospital, Harvey Dent ran his thumb over the rough spot on the bed rail. Would it fray the strong bands of the soft restraints enough so he could tear it? There was only one way to find out. He began sawing his arm back and forth, feeling the rough spot catch every time the band passed over it.

* * *

Jonathan Crane dropped the remote. "Fear." he said aloud, his voice sounding strange and loud in his ears. The twin wildfires of intuition and deduction blazed in his brain, flaring into an inferno where they met. He felt a little dizzy with realization.

The fear toxin. Cory Witt had died—no, been transformed, _transmuted_ in an environment saturated with it. The paper which theorized the existence of the meta-gene had also theorized that the gene used the catalyzing agent and re-formed the organism around it, incorporating it, absorbing its qualities and turning them into power.

Power. The power of _fear_. It was part of her now. All right, he _still_ didn't understand where or how the shoes came into it, but the fear…

When one looked at it objectively, why should a woman be a figure of such menace simply because she didn't brush her hair? Parodies such as the Scary Movie franchise demonstrated how easily the spell could be broken. Different lighting, another camera angle, and the most terrifying ghost became no more than just another ordinary woman.

Yet the people at the waterfront had been horribly afraid. In broad daylight, too. She hadn't killed anyone. She had not even touched them. No one had even been hurt.

What was so frightening about that?

She instilled fear. She spread fear. She _thrived_ on fear. At first no one had been able to see her. Only the eye of a camera could record that she was even there. Then she had been seen, but not heard in person. Now she could be both seen and heard. She was growing, developing, changing. Fear nourished her. The greater and stronger the fear, the stronger she became…

…and then the reason for her attachment to the Joker became _abundantly_ clear. Wherever he went, there was _certain_ to be a feast for her. Afraid of nothing himself, he created fear as few others could.

"Fear." Crane repeated. His fascination, his life's work. Why, when one looked at it from the correct angle, he was practically her father. It was his toxin which planted the seed of what she was now.

He could hardly _wait_ to start studying her.

* * *

Out there in the city, one could practically smell the fear coming off of Gotham as 11:45AM grew ever nearer.

If Crane was correct in his deductions, the effect on Grace was certain to be interesting.


	69. Thoughts On God

A/N: Whoo-Hoo!!!! I broke a thousand on the reviews! (Does a Snoopy happy-dance.) Uh--um, excuse me....Another build-up chapter, slightly warm and fuzzy...Enjoy!

* * *

The Shoes (like Jay, I too thought of them in capitals now) consumed about two pounds of steak each, bone and all, before I sensed they were satisfied. They liked them best warmed up but not cooked, which was tricky, but Jay threw them in the microwave at half-power, turning them over regularly, until they were blood warm. The champagne, hastily chilled in the freezer, went over well too.

'They're practically purring.' I told Jay, who had figured out how to light a burner on the 1953 era gas stove and was now hunting for a frying pan.

"Just so long as they're not staring at me." he said, banging cupboards.

That made me laugh. _Staring_ at him! But when they were hungry and he was the only warm meat around…And he was warm. I could tell that now, my surprise of the day. Not that he was warm, but that I could feel it, which made me wonder what exactly was going on with me.

Curious, I held my hand out to the ring of flaming gas. I could feel heat and cold, but the extremes weren't painful or even uncomfortable. It was like the difference between wet and dry, although I now had my hand in the fire itself. It changed color where I touched it, going from blue to green with orange flickers, like my ghost lights.

Jay stood up, flourishing a cast iron skillet. "Paydirt!" he crowed—and then, seeing me bathing my hand in the lit burner, asked, "Doesn't that hurt?"

'No, of course not.' I moved aside so he could put the pan on the stove.

"With you, I never can, uh, tell. Oil, I need oil. Did they—ah." He found a bottle of olive oil and poured a dollop into the pan, rolling it around so it greased the entire bottom. Taking the head of garlic from the bag the Riveras had delivered, he broke off a couple of cloves, then smashed them with the flat of a knife before peeling them.

'Who would have thought you'd be so handy around a kitchen?' I asked rhetorically, watching him work.

"I had a job as a short-order cook in a diner for a while." he replied, chopping up the garlic.

'That doesn't surprise me, not now that I've seen you at work. You do this like a pro.' I remembered something. 'But then how is it you needed me to talk you through cooking the chicken and broccoli last night?'

"Simple." He grinned at me, which came off as salacious and nasty thanks to the makeup. "I, uh, I was a short-order cook. Grilling and frying, that was what I did. None of this fancy-smancy stuff." He threw the chopped garlic in the pan, sending up a sizzle, and followed it up with one of the steaks. "Hey, look at the computer screen, will you? See if the number of dots has changed."

'No. Not yet.' I told him, after I checked. 'I'm looking forward to figuring out how to work technology for myself.' I wandered back into the kitchen.

"Um…say what?"

'Well, if Sadako can imprint images on videotape and come crawling out of TV sets wherever her victims are, and Kayako plus several others can communicate through cellphones, I don't see why I can't learn to, too.'

He thought this over for a moment, then shrugged and flipped the steak. "You're getting a real, uh, kick out of the whole 'being dead' business, aren't you?"

'It's surprisingly empowering, actually.' I watched him salt and pepper the meat. 'I don't have to be afraid anymore.'

"Afraid of what?" he asked.

'Oh, the usual. Losing my job, getting hit by a car while crossing the street, getting cancer, growing old and dying alone. Death in general. I can now say, "Been there, done that." Then there's the whole issue of men. I don't have to avoid eye contact for fear of getting hit on, I don't have to watch what I say for fear of being too bold or too smart or leading him on or being a ball-buster. I can wear whatever I want without risking unwanted advances up to and including rape. Dying might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.' I was only being half sardonic.

He giggled, flipping the steak again. "Did you get that kind of thing a _lot_?" he asked.

'Hey, a lot of non-Asian men have psychosexual fantasies about Asian girls that they'd just love to make come true. Imagine their disappointment when they learned I was about as exotic as Jennie White-bread next door. I grew up in a community where the only place I ever saw another Asian face in the flesh was in the Lucky Dragon Take-away or the Sushi-ko.'

"It seems to me like, uh, some stuff is coming back to you." he said, suddenly ominously serious.

'I had a dream last night, and since then…I don't know. But ever since I woke up this morning, I've had this feeling like I ate a ton of Halloween candy. I've got a sugar buzz on or something. What I _can_ remember is that I was born in Bhutan and adopted by Americans as a baby.'

I could hear a thought in his mind, something like '_yeah, that'd be about right'_, and I started to ask him what he meant, but right at that moment, he burned his hand on the pan.

"Owww! Damn, that hurts!" He had been using a kitchen towel as a makeshift pot holder, and somehow it had come partly unwrapped. Turning off the heat, he ran cold water over the burn, hissing in pain.

'_Please_ be more careful.' I said, looking at the welt. When he hurt, I did, too. Emotionally, anyway. Damn it, why did I care about him at all? _He was a mass murderer_! Didn't that make me sick—or at least deeply pathetic?

"I was almost done anyhow." He got out a bottle of cognac and splashed it over the steak, then lit a match and smiled while the flames whooshed up. "The final touch—it makes it sooo tasty."

'Oh, come on. You just like to set fire to stuff.'

"Well, there is that, too." he admitted, sliding the steak onto a plate. "Mmmm. Doesn't it smell delicious, sassy girl?" He lead the way into the main room and seated himself at the dining table, where he could watch the laptop for himself.

I sat down too. 'Yes, it does—but this is yet another meal you're eating without a single fruit or vegetable on the side. You'll wind up fat and hypertensive.'

"Like I'm gonna live that long. How is it you're not already fat and, uh, hypertensive, the way you love food?" He cut a piece and stuck it in his mouth.

'Easy. One: Eat real Asian food, not the Americanized version. Two: Always take a friend. And three: Concentrate on the vegetables and rice, and quit when you could still eat a little more.'

He mumbled something through that bite of steak while cutting the next, and I watched him. Murderer, arsonist, terrorist, giggling maniac clown...

I couldn't see just the mass murderer when I looked at him, though. I saw the aspect of him which liked Sol and Bernice, the lightning-quick intelligence, the appreciation he had of food, his sense of humor, and how well we got along most of the time. I could not set aside how I had to soothe him through his nightmares at night, or how boyishly eager he was that I should be impressed by the Tower. Yes, he was like a stream tainted with mercury, poisoned and toxic, turbid and bearing death, but there were nuggets of gold which shone out despite the filth.

Maybe this was, in a microcosmic way, how God saw us, all of us, all six or seven billion individual humans. He saw everything about us, the good and the bad. He knew us completely, and loved us anyway, like a good parent, without end. Deploring the evil in us, wishing and wanting us to fulfill our potential, believing there was something wonderful about us even when we couldn't see it ourselves. And, like a good parent, loving us equally, Hitler just as much as Gandhi, never taking favorites. Punishing us when it was necessary, but hurting inside that we made it necessary, ready to forgive us once we say we're sorry and mean it.

God loved even Jay (although He seemed to have forgotten about me. What was up with that?) which maybe made my caring about him a little bit forgivable.

"Dollar for your thoughts, Gracie." Jay swallowed, looking at me inquisitively. "It's not like you to be so quiet."

'Inflation again?' I said, referring to a joke I'd made while taping the video at the modeling bureau.

"That, plus I think yours are worth more than the going rate."

'That's so sweet of you!' I cooed sarcastically. 'I was just wondering how I can justify caring about you.'

"That's what you're thinking about? Hell, I can answer, uh, that. What else do you have going right now?"

'Thanks. That makes me feel _so_ much better.'

"For what it's worth, sassy girl," he paused in cutting another bite. "I kind of care about you too. It's…nice having you around. You make all the stuff that goes on in between capers interesting. Ah!"

His attention abruptly shifted from me to the laptop. "The dots!" It was now an hour and a half until 11:45, the fatal hour, and the mastermind had sent out the trigger signal.

The numbers had just increased a lot. An awful lot. Upon counting and subtracting from the previous total, we discovered there were one hundred and sixty more dots, forty in each color.

'I thought you said they wouldn't use this site anymore?' I asked, as he pulled up another window and started typing like mad.

"_Probably_. I said _probably_. Either they don't have a choice, or they're giving Batsy the finger… Yes!!!! _Goddamn_, but my kung fu is the _greatest_!" He slammed on the table with both fists, making the plate of steak, the utensils, the laptop, and the vase of tulips all jump and clatter.

'Your _what_? What did you do?'

"I've got them, sassy girl. I've got their location traced. You, uh, you wanna go out and play?"

'Oh, yes. Most definitely.'

* * *

A/N: Me again. I don't usually bring God into a fic and I don't want to step on anybody's beliefs or lack thereof, but it just seemed to fit in this chapter.


	70. And So It Begins

A/N: To those who helped out with my community policing idea, I want to say I can't possibly thank you enough. Unfortunately, what I have learned about what is going on is that this situation is more complicated than I thought. Much, much more complicated. I didn't have all the facts, and probably still don't, but at least I have a clearer picture.

The person in question has been doing this for at least eight years and does not respond to any kind of pressure whatsoever. She is vicious and relentless. She does not feel remorse and cannot be cowed. She enjoys doing what she is doing and enjoys the responses she gets. Others have tried what I have tried and failed. Support is not going to come to the rescue unless somebody puts something in a fic that will get them sued by an outside source who owns the material.

The stories in question are now down, and hopefully we can all move on from here.

Anyhow, on with the fun part: the story!

* * *

Half the computers at the Major Crimes Unit had the 'Dots' website up on their screen, so when the lines suddenly began to lengthen in a colorful extended ellipsis, half a dozen detectives and officers leapt to count them.

"One hundred and sixty." Montoya reached the sum first, and it was as if a cold and clammy hand stroked down her naked spine as she said it. Her skin writhed with gooseflesh, prickling as if a million mosquitoes attacked her at the same time.

"One hundred and sixty." Commissioner Gordon repeated. "I want all emergency services in and around Gotham City on alert. Police, the Fire Department, ambulance services, all hospitals and clinics should be on standby…and the morgue as well."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"Uh, well, this is just _annoying_…." I drawled as I tried to punch the address into this vehicle's GPS.

'What is?' Gracie leaned over to have a look—and damned if I didn't feel something as she brushed against me. Nothing solid, not like a real girl's shoulder, but a tingle like a breeze. At that contact—well, the involuntary reflex woke up and took note. Not to full attention, mind you, but enough to have me wondering that if such an incomplete and momentary touch was that charged, what would the real thing be like? I shelved the notion because when you dwell too long on that particular subject you get distracted from your work.

'What's so annoying?' she asked again.

"According to this piece of junk, this location doesn't exist." Speaking of things which didn't exist, or which I wasn't supposed to know existed, like her name when she was alive, I had very nearly given the game away earlier. Only by deliberately burning my hand had I saved my secret.

'Do you want to go back in and use Mapquest?' she asked.

"I have a, uh, hunch—."

'I wouldn't call it a hunch. Not as such. It's just bad posture that makes you look as if you do. You round your shoulders forward most of the time, and that's what does it.' Her mouth was serious as she said it.

"What are you talking ab—Ah, I get it. Ha-ha. Can we please stay on topic, sassy girl?" I had to resist the impulse to square my shoulders and straighten up in response. "I doubt that Mapquest or any other way of getting directions will help. It's a secret location. That's the point. But I have a plan B." I turned off the car and got out.

'And that is?' She slid over and out my door, still preserving the illusion of a solidity which (I hoped) would stop being an illusion, and soon.

"We go back upstairs, where you, uh, try your ghostly mojo on my laptop until you get your technology groove going like your heroines'."

Since I still couldn't see her eyes for her hair, I had to go by the quizzical way her lips stretched. 'You think it's going to be _that_ easy?' she asked.

"You don't know until you try, do you?" I cast an eye over her current garb. "By the way, did you know that when you're getting ready to do the 'Glare of Death' thing, you automatically change into your nightie?"

She looked down at her clothes. I hadn't actually seen the change happen, but she was wearing a long white thing with no sleeves made of something flimsy that wasn't actually see-through. With the Shoes, of course. 'Well—huh?!' She sounded baffled.

"Just like you did at Mercier's Modeling—and like when you did Carter, and even when you popped out at that guy at what'shername's place. I think that _somebody_'s gonna die today…" I cackled.

'I'd rather be the Hand of Justice, but if I have no other choice I guess the Glare of Death will have to do.' she retorted. 'You might want to think twice about my looking at _you_. Ever.'

* * *

Today Lady Shiva wore a quilted brocade coatdress with a pattern of gold chrysanthemums on a sage-bronze background. Her deadly fan was not in sight. However, the long decorative cuffs on her sleeves, so long they grazed the floor, swung when she moved in a way that suggested they were weighed down. Just as an iron ball smaller than a fist could smash open a skull when swung at the end of a meter-long chain, leaving a man's brains cooling in the dirt, so could a similarly sized rock when enveloped in a sleeve made of strong material. The art of fighting with weighted sleeves was an old one, and many court ladies of the past sought training in it—because after all, one never knew, did one?

Lady Shiva never went unarmed. Not even when naked.

Qain watched her hands as they caressed the marble balcony bannister, admiring how well-shaped and polished the nails were, how gracefully her fingers curved, how she kept the inevitable calluses from training pumiced down. She was silhouetted against the morning sky, where the sun glared at the ice coating on the trees and made it run away as water.

"He feels his age, Shiva" he observed, when he was ready. "This latest brush with death has softened him. He dreams now of grandchildren playing about his knees, not of conquest."

"_Lady_ Shiva," she corrected him, meeting his eyes and not breaking contact until he did, or until he acknowledged her title, whichever came first.

He needed her support, so he inclined his head. "_Lady_ Shiva."

She gave him a very precise nod. "There is a poem by the American writer Robert Frost titled 'Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening'—one of the few truly great poems in the English language. Some who read it see only the snow falling, hear the bells chime when the horse tosses its head, and think it good because it paints a pretty picture. Then there are those who see it as the choice one makes between the allure of freedom and the bindings of society. Still others interpret it as the thoughts of a man who contemplates suicide but resolves to keep his promises and honor his obligations. 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.'" she quoted.

Qain sighed. "Can you never simply say what you mean?"

"No," she replied, contradicting herself. " But to indulge you, I shall—for the moment. What you mistake for softness is merely convalescence. He went so far through the Gate on this occasion that his return has been slower than on other occasions. It is not and was never merely his physical abilities that made him our superior, but his intellect and, above all, his experience."

"This is a different era; his experience no longer applies." was Qain's curt reply.

"There are journals and secret letters in the archives of the Fortress of the Blue Flower dating back centuries which say the same thing; that his day is done, that he shall soon be supplanted and destroyed. Yet many of those who wrote them have been ashes for longer than you have been alive, and he still rules us." She lifted her head, closed her eyes, and let the sun bathe her face. "One should never forget the examples of Ebenezer Darrk and Sensei, in our own time, either."

She continued. "He is foolishly fond of his daughter, it is true, but he has always been so. Since he cannot get the son he wants in his own marriage bed, he would marry her to a man he finds worthy—and who would prove a good father for his grandchildren. You were out of the running a decade ago, after he learned about—."

"Let us not talk of that." Qain would have liked to be rough, but he did need her, even as he needed Merlyn, Professor Ojo, Alpha and Onyx. "The evidence was—misinterpreted."

"Misinterpreted, yes," she sibilated. "Misinterpreted all over the floor. We are assassins, Qain. Not killers, and especially not maniacs. It is one thing to take pleasure in work well done, and quite another to have such _fun_ on the job. It is…inappropriate. Ra's would not trust you to be in the same country as his grandchild, when he has one. Talia will make a very pretty broodmare, when the time comes. She has the hips for it."

"So, for that matter, do you." Qain regarded her figure.

"Let us not verge into the personal, Qain. I should prefer to get to the point, for your conversation is growing tiresome. You want my support. You shall not have it. Yet I will not oppose you nor inform upon you. I rather like him, which is why I shall not support you, yet he made me kill my sister, which is why I shall not support him. He should not have done that."

Qain stiffened. "Those who are not for me are against me, Shiva."

"_Lady_ Shiva. Do not be such a fool, Qain. Were I against you, I would have told him about your little side project long ago."

"Side project?"

"Yes. Ra's put the overseeing of the computer department in your hands thinking that was safer than making you a trainer, given your predilections—but Gotham City has been a very exciting place of late, has it not?"

The two regarded each other for the space of three breaths, three exhalations, three inhalations. Then both exploded into violence at the same moment in a fight which would have made any Hong Kong movie studio executive reach for his checkbook and a multi-movie deal contract.

Qain was massive, muscled like a bull, and topped Lady Shiva by more than a foot. His weapons were two marahoshi, a weapon similar to a sai with one prong and a deadly blade. Lady Shiva, for her part, had only her weighted sleeves.

However, she was the more agile for her smaller, lighter frame, and under the coatdress, which was slashed to the waist on both sides and open down the front, she wore black workout pants.

Had there been a witness to their battle, that person might have compared it to a fight between a bear and a falcon. The bear might have the advantage of bulk and brute strength, but the falcon would have greater mobility and very little strike zone—that is, it would be so small it would be difficult to hit. Moreover, she had mastered the Stance of the Coyote, which allows a fighter to practically suspend time and defy gravity.

To defeat her, he only had to be lucky once or twice; to defeat him, she had to be lucky a hundred times. But there were reasons why she was the better assassin, even beyond his 'predilections', and among them were her accuracy and coolness of mind. He lunged and thrust, while she floated and struck—at the nerve centers which lay close underneath the surface of the skin. A blow in the right place could practically paralyze a given limb for hours.

Within three minutes he was breathing hard and down to one working arm, his left, while she looked as fresh as if she had just dressed. "You do not yield?" she inquired, as if she were asking him whether he preferred wine or beer at dinner.

His response would never be known, as in the other wing of the house, where the administrative personnel worked, a window exploded outward and a ball of greenish-yellow lightning danced out and over the lawn like a drop of water on a hot skillet.


	71. Lark

Some miles away, in a certain passion pit apartment on 92nd…

"…what did you do to my computer?" Jay asked, looking at the display. It looked like a 3-D comic book does when you aren't wearing the glasses, possibly also after taking a hit of something very illegal as well.

'I—um—I called up my ghost lights and shoved them into it.'

"You shoved them? You couldn't just have dropped them, you had to shove them?"

'After twenty minutes of futzing around trying to work my ghostly mojo with no results, I was a little frustrated.' I shrugged. 'Oops.'

"Oops? What do you call what's on the screen? Bird tracks?" He gestured at it. The colors had resolved into some scratchy graphics.

'Babylonian cuneiform?' I guessed.

"Babylonian cuneiform, my ass. It's a good thing I backed up my data first. Did you, uh, accomplish anything other than ruining my computer?" He gave me a dirty look.

'It might get better on its own, you know. Try rebooting it. That often helps.'

"Oh, I'll reboot it, all right. I'll reboot it down the elevator shaft."

'Anyway,' I said over his grumbling. 'I _did_ accomplish something. Right now, my ghost lights are traveling through the internet to that location, and once they get there, I'll call them back the long way so we can follow them in the car.'

"Uh—you think your lights know the street system by heart, or are they gonna expect us to fly straight there?"

'I _think_ we'll figure it out.' I said, using sub-artic tones. 'There is one thing, though—I think they're picking up momentum, or something like it, along the way.'

* * *

The ball of greenish-yellow lightning bounced and sputtered around the training ground for a few seconds before it hit a rock and split in two. Despite the initial window-shattering explosion, it didn't seem to be doing any more damage. The ground showed no sign of scorching in its wake. Now that there were two of them, they rose from the ground like a pair of fat bumblebees the size of basketballs, unhurriedly spiraling into the air as though they were fixing the location of a patch of wildflowers.

Meanwhile, from out of the temporary headquarters of the League of Shadows, assassins, staff and servants poured out of doors to gape at the phenomena. Naturally a multilingual group, everyone was sufficiently surprised that they lapsed back into their mother tongues, but the general gist of their exclamations was clear. "What the _hell_ are those?" covered it.

Among those who came out to see what was going on were Ra's Al-Ghul and his daughter Talia. They watched the pair of orbs circling in ever-widening arcs around the grounds and the compound, spiraling up into the air, before they both suddenly stopped, paused, and then headed in a straight line back toward Gotham City.

"I may not know precisely what they are made from or how they work." Ra's said, looking at their fading glow, "but I know what they are. Those are tracer probes. I believe we will soon have visitors. I suggest that we be ready for them when they arrive."

* * *

Twilla's mother dropped them off at the main public library at ten-thirty. This was the second day of no school thanks to the suicides, and Lark would much rather have spent it as she spent the first day: at her grandmother's.

They had made braided poppyseed bread from scratch, and Grams had listened while she told her all about the latest book she was reading: Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, which was all about a future where everybody had plastic surgery, free of charge, when they were sixteen, so everyone was beautiful and everyone was equal. Grams had really listened, too, not just pretending, because she said the book sounded like two episodes of an old TV show she'd loved, something called The Twilight Zone. As it turned out, she had the entire series on VHS, and they watched both episodes during lunch. Even if it was in black and white, it was pretty good.

Then Grams took her along to a yarn shop to pick out supplies for a baby blanket she wanted to make for a friend's daughter's new baby, and the woman who owned the shop had been very nice. She showed Lark how to knit while her grandmother compared colors, and it turned out not to be that hard. It was so simple, in fact, that Lark started a scarf of her own in a soft, fuzzy, sea-colored yarn and had four inches done by supper time. She would much rather be at Grams' now, even though her house always smelled of onion soup and Lark _hated_ onions.

But Lark's mother thought that spending time with Twilla, who had good social skills and no difficulties with peer interaction, (as the therapist would put it), would somehow magically transfer those qualities to Lark. Therefore, the two girls were to spend the day together, looking out for each other. That was the problem with having a mother whose best friend had a daughter the same age; she and Twilla were expected to be friends too, because it was more convenient for both moms that way. Any protest on Lark's part fell on deaf ears.

While Lark fought with the seatbelt buckle, Twilla leapt out of the car, singing out, "Bye, Mom. See you at five-fifteen!" Something about Twilla always made Lark more awkward, more like a gear cut in the metric system installed in a machine made to imperial measurements.

Then Lark's purse handle slipped, and her stuff spilled out onto the pavement. Including, of course, the extra sanitary pad—exactly what she wanted Twilla to see the least.

While she scrambled to pick up all her things, her face hot with embarrassment, she heard Twilla say to someone, "I'm sorry. I had to bring her. Her mother and mine are best friends, so they've been sticking me with her forever."

"Can't you ditch her?" a girl's voice asked.

"No. I'd get in so much trouble if I did, you have no idea. And they check. If I can't put her on the phone when one of them calls—well, you don't _want_ to know."

Furious now, Lark stood up. "I'm going in the lib—." She began, but stopped, because Twilla had taken out a cigarette and was lighting it up. Three bored-looking girls, Twilla's friends, were standing around with their hips stuck out like they were posing for a magazine.

"Don't _look_ at me like that." she said, when she realized how Lark was watching her smoke. "You'd think I was shooting up or something. Sorry." Twilla apologized to her friends.

"Will she tell?" asked one of the girls.

"It doesn't matter if she does. She makes stuff up all the time, so nobody believes her anymore." Twilla said, cruelly and, unfortunately, accurately. "She's on all kinds of shit herself, only it's all doctor-prescribed. She's depressed and she's borderline Asparagus' syndrome."

"Asperger's syndrome." Lark corrected her.

"Asswiper's syndrome is more like it." Twilla retorted.

Angrier than ever, Lark opened her mouth to reply, but stopped. Saying what she thought was always a mistake. She blurted out the worst, stupidest things when she didn't self-edit beforehand.

"I'm going in the library." she forced out, and left the four behind, not bothering to look to see if they followed. Maybe she was borderline Asperger's, but then why did she do so well with her grandmother and adults like the woman who owned the yarn shop and like the librarians? She never had a problem interacting with _them_. As for making stuff up—well, she only did that with some people, like her mother. Telling the truth and saying what she thought got her into trouble most of the time; lying was actually easier.

Leaving Uglies and Twilight at the return counter, she went for the young adult stacks. She would have liked to get Pretties, the next in the Uglies series, but Twilla or one of her friends was bound to make some cutting remark like "Pretties? What do_ you_ want with that?" Instead she chose So Yesterday, which was also by Westerfeld, and New Moon. Rounding the stacks, she saw that Twilla and her friends had discovered that library users could sign up to use the internet for fifteen minutes at a time each, and all four were clustered around one terminal, whispering and giggling. Fine: with fifteen minutes each, that gave her an hour until they got restless. She went back to browsing.

Was everyone like Twilla and her friends, not to mention everyone she went to school with? Was there a cruel streak, a heart of darkness concealed inside everyone? And if so, what happened when they grew up? How could anyone trust another person enough to fall in love with them?

What happened when people grew up, anyhow? Every adult she knew seemed to have forgotten what it was really like in school, among your peers. Maybe twenty years would be enough to blur the edges of memory, but Lark doubted that. She had once seen a documentary about World War Two, and what happened after. In France, they took girls who had been…too friendly with German soldiers and Nazi officers, and, calling them collaborators, shaved their heads before making them run through the streets naked or nearly so. That was what school was like, what _peer interaction_ was like, except that you had to go through it every day for years. And they didn't actually shave your head and make you run through school naked—although if it meant you would then be left alone forever, it would be worth it.

Collecting a few more books, she sat down and read for a while. When she looked up, it was after eleven-thirty, which meant Twilla and her friends would be done soon, so she gathered up her choices, left her discards on the go-back cart, and went to check out. So far, it hadn't been that bad, really. Maybe she could get through the day okay, as long as she kept her mouth shut.

But what Twilla and her friends were doing when she went up to them made her blurt out, "You're not supposed to be looking at that!"

Every head within earshot whipped around to see what she was talking about, but when they discovered it wasn't porn they went back to minding their own business.

"Why are you so lame?" Twilla screwed up her face. "It's only Gothamscene."

"But the police commissioner said on the news last night that people should avoid that site because it might trigger suicides today." Lark said, knowing it was a mistake.

"Listen." Twilla swung around. "Maybe it does, but do you know what kind of girls committed suicide last time? Whiny little losers. And I know who's the most like that around here, don't you?"

"If you're going to be that loud," said the internet use supervisor, intervening, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Your time on the terminal is up, any way."

They left the library. "Let's go to Miranda's house," said one of Twilla's friends, and, having nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Lark trailed along after, on the other side of the street. As the happy group on the other side became even larger and happier after they ran into some more friends, Lark became more and more depressed.

Did it ever get any better, or did you just get older? Maybe that was how the suicides were triggered: the signal made you depressed and you just got so depressed that by the time 11:45 rolled around you were ready to kill yourself just to get away from the feeling.

She passed a newsstand, where a trashy tabloid had a photoshopped picture of the Joker and his girlfriend on the cover, with the headline: Gotham's New Power Couple!!?? The Joker—now there was somebody who didn't hide his cruel streak. He didn't have a secret heart of darkness. All his darkness was out there for the world to see. Maybe that meant he had a secret nice side, and that was why Grace or The Grudge was with him. Lark kind of admired the woman she'd seen clips of on the news. She stood so tall, so confident, and she sounded so sure of herself. What was her secret?

Okay, so somebody who was sleeping with the Joker wasn't exactly a good role model but…it would sure be nice to be as unafraid as Grace seemed.

Across the street, Twilla's group had grown to more than a dozen. Some boys had joined them, and nobody was paying attention to her. Maybe she should slip off: what did it matter to her if Twilla got in trouble for not keeping track of her? But then Twilla's phone rang, and a moment later she looked around, calling "Lark? LARK! Your mother's on my phone!"

Lark had no choice but to cross the street and join them. As she did, she passed under a bank clock.

The time was 11:39.

* * *

A/N: Can't resist the cliffies. Sorry this took so long: I worked this weekend and then the tone of this chapter eluded me for the longest time. More sooner, I promise.


	72. If All Your Friends

As it so happened, my computer _wasn't_ broken after all. Those strange graphics finally resolved themselves into pictures. Pictures of the place where the signal came from, like those from a spy satellite, which were, I had to admit, very useful things to have.

"I see—at least eighteen who, uh, look like fighters." I pored over the images. "and as many more ordinary people—yeah, they'd want flunkies."

'How can you tell who looks like a fighter or not?' Grace asked.

"From how they stand, that they're in shape, the looks on their faces. You can always tell a predator, sassy girl. Think about the difference between a lion and a zebra. They look different. They move different." I felt a grin forming. This was going to be _such_ fun.

'Well, if they're lions, then I suppose you'd be a laughing hyena. No offense.'

"None taken, sassy girl… _You'd_ be something venomous. Anyone who ever got on the wrong side of your tongue knows that."

'And wouldn't you just love to be on the right side of my tongue?' she retorted.

I raised an eyebrow, "Well, uh, as it so happens..."

We said her reply together. "HENTAI!" And laughed. Exchanges like that were great, that was what made our relationship interesting. I mean, lust fades, but when you've got what we had, it gave me hope for the long term.

'Anyway...' Grace looked at the pictures more closely. 'Do you see that face, there? I think that's Talia herself.'

I squinted. "I do believe you're right. Which, uh, proves my theory that's she's involved in this somehow. We-ll—since they also look so very shocked, they must have seen your ghost lights in action and so they'll be on the alert. That means _I'm_ going to need some toys…and some expendable bodies."

* * *

"Yeah, Mom." Lark said. "We spent some time at the library and now we're going—to a coffee shop." she invented. Her mother was against her going to the home of someone she didn't know. All around her, Twilla's friends were staring at her, looking annoyed.

"Okay, hon." her mother said. "Stay in places where there are people, don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it, and—stay safe, you hear me?"

"Yes, Mom. Talk to you later." They exchanged goodbyes, and then ended the call.

Twilla held her hand out for the phone, rolling her eyes and sighing with exasperation. "That ought to hold them for another hour. Come on."

"Is she always like this?" somebody asked, and everyone laughed.

"Yes." Twilla replied. "But she might be a little worse today, 'cause she's on the rag." That got an even louder laugh.

Knowing she was just digging herself in deeper with every word, Lark answered back. "Jokes like that aren't clever!"

More laughing.

"'_Clever_?'" asked a girl, "Who talks like that?"

"She does." Twilla said. "I'm hoping she's one of those who commits suicide this time around and puts all of us out of her misery." That got the biggest laugh of all. Buoyed by their high spirits, the group moved on, climbing a slight hill to the freeway overpass bridge. Whoever Miranda was, apparantly she lived on the other side.

As they set foot on the bridge, one of the boys who was walking in the lead turned around to face the group, walking backward. "That's not a bad idea, though."

"What isn't?" asked one of the girls.

"Leaving before last call." he replied. "Look, my dad is always saying 'These are the best years of your life. Enjoy them while you can.' Hasn't anybody ever told you all that?"

A chorus of agreement met that particular question, egging him on. "So why stick around another sixty years if everything's down hill from here? Why not live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse? Not right now, of course, but in a few years, when we're all seventeen, eighteen years old."

Hearing some objections, he raised a hand. "Now hear me out. We'd have one last huge party—all the drugs you can smoke, snort, swallow or shoot. Gallons of alcohol, too, and the biggest orgy you could ever imagine. Everybody with everybody else. No condoms, no STDs, no hangovers, no guilt, no babies, no worries, no consequences, because in the morning—maybe on the second or third day—we commit suicide together."

"Yeah, right. How many of you guys would just show up for the sex and then run out?" scoffed a girl.

"No," he insisted. "That'd be the first by-law of the Suicide Club. Before you can get into the party, you have to sign and put a fingerprint in your own blood on a document addressed to the police. Before a single bottle gets opened, that gets dropped in the mail. That way there won't be any backing down. What do you say? Who's gonna join the Suicide Club? I'm the president, and I say the charter members who sign up today get the first pick of everything."

The group seemed to think that was a fine idea, or at least a fine joke, to judge by their comments. Lark was horrified. Even if they were joking, to do so on this day, when it was only minutes from the time…

"The Suicide Club! The Suicide Club!" The boy who had proposed the idea, the president of the club, began a chant. Passing a light post, he used it to climb up on the bridge railing. One of the girls reached up, and he pulled her up beside him.

Behind them was a drop of who knew how many feet straight down to the concrete freeway below. Even at 11:42, it was full of traffic racing along at 50 mph. Seeing the teens on the rail, both drivers on the bridge and down on the highway began honking their horns, and some people yelled things out their windows at them.

Even though she didn't like these people at all, Lark was still frightened, and she begged, "Oh, don't, please don't. Get down from there, now, before something happens!" She had seen kids do things like that before and live, and the railing was strong concrete, full of gravel, but…

Twilla cast her a scornful glance, and reached up to the first two, to be pulled up beside them. That seemed to be the signal for everyone else to do it, too, and soon there was a line of fifteen on the railing, chanting, "The Suicide Club! The Suicide Club!"

Then the last up on the rail, a girl, slipped on a patch of unmelted ice left from the storm the night before, and—.

It happened very fast, so fast it was like a sweater unraveling at a yank. Some of them had linked their arms together, and they went down almost as one, while others just seemed to flinch in the wrong direction… From the freeway below, there was a terrible 'Chunk!' Then came not only horns honking, but breaks squealing and the sounds of fiberglass, windshields and metal crashing.

There were only three people left on the rail. None of them was Twilla. The first boy, the Suicide Club president, the first girl he had helped up, and another girl halfway down the line. Behind Lark on the bridge, she heard cars screech to a halt, and people getting out, yelling. Meanwhile, the first girl had started to scream and struggle with the boy, who was trying to tell her to calm down, be careful. Yet it was of no avail. She was strong, a field hockey player, and hysteria made her stronger. Together they toppled over, too.

That left one girl. A man came running up, followed by more people. "Miss—miss! Don't. You don't have to do this. Don't do it." They stopped at a distance when she tensed up.

Lark saw the decision she made, reading it in the girl's eyes. Fourteen friends lay dead on the freeway below. Fourteen dead, and she alone was left to answer for it. "But I have to." she replied. "It's the suicide club, and we're the charter members."

One step backward, and she was gone, too.

Then strong arms grabbed Lark around her waist, and someone yelled. "Not you. Not you too!" Only then did she become aware that she had climbed halfway up on the railing, and her hands were skinned raw on the concrete.

"But I only wanted to see—." She began, and then it hit her, in a brief, joyous flare of sheer relief. Twilla was _gone_. Twilla was _dead_. She would never have to spend a day with her again. Twilla was _dead_!

Then she got sick to her stomach, as the flip side of that moment hit her. How _could_ she be glad Twilla was dead? That was awful. _She_ was awful. They'd been friends, once, up until they were about seven or eight, best friends. Even now, it wasn't always bad. Without her friends there to play up to, Twilla was sometimes okay.

This was terrible. Lark herself had a cruel streak she never knew about. She had her own secret heart of darkness.

_She was just like everybody else_.

Everything got very strange and faraway after that. Lark felt cold, freezing cold, and she didn't know why. She knew she was sitting on the curb, with two strangers holding onto her, talking to her, but even though they were speaking English, the meaning wasn't getting through. Her face and fingers felt stiff, wooden, tingly.

At some point there were lights and sirens, and then someone in a uniform was looking into her face and taking her pulse. "Clinical shock." said the person. "What she needs now is a strong hot cup of coffee with a lot of sugar in it, and she'll be fine—at least physically. Her hands need to be cleaned up, too."

Another person in a uniform said. "That's good. At least one of them was saved—You know, this finally answers that question mothers have been asking their kids since the beginning of time."

"What question is that?" asked the first person in uniform.

" 'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?'"


	73. Unlikely Scenarios

11:40: The Wayne Penthouse. Bruce was…who knew where, puttering around. Rachel sat at the center island in the kitchen, paging through a glossy apartment guide and dogearing the listings she liked.

While she considered the merits of front-desk security twenty-four hours a day versus an on-site gym, Alfred chatted while chopping vegetables. "Given the sudden change in weather, I thought a smoked trout chowder would go over well this afternoon. Something hot and savory to cheer a cold and blustery day."

"Uh-hummm." Rachel replied. Realizing her reply lacked any acknowledgement of a dear and valued friend, she made more of an effort. "Is that the kind of chowder with tomatoes or with cream?"

"With cream—or in this case, evaporated skim milk. The flavors are rich enough without adding excess fat…"

Rachel listened with half an ear as Alfred described the hearty soup he had begun. She had told herself she had deferred going to the hospital to see Harvey until after the dangerous time and the following chaos and confusion were over, but if she were honest with herself, she had to admit she was putting it off for other reasons. She dreaded another day like the one before.

The doctors did not want to put him on psychiatric medications until after the meningitis had run its course. That was probably for the best, yet it meant that Harvey's mood swings, from violent jealousy to clinging neediness were uncontrolled and unpredictable. Another session of make-believe would break her heart. Odd, hadn't Alfred said there were no tomatoes in this soup, because that liquid running off the cutting board sure looked like—.

And then she realized. Alfred had chopped deeply into the fingers of his left hand as if they were just some more carrots, blithely unconcerned—and he was about to bring the knife down again.

"No!" she screamed, throwing the apartment guide in his face, to distract him. "Bruce! Bruce, where are you?" Grabbing Alfred's hand, she tried to apply pressure to all four fingers at the same time.

"Miss Rachel!" Alfred exclaimed. "What on earth is the matter?"

"Alfred, you're _bleeding!_ Bruce!" At that moment, the clock ticked over to 11:46—and whatever malignant force had gripped the elderly butler dissipated, and Rachel found herself trying to hold him up as he sagged in agony and cried out.

Bruce chose that moment to appear in the door, shirtless and glistening with sweat. "Sorry, I was lifting wei—Alfred! What happened?"

"I think—." Rachel sought around for a clean towel while Bruce took over the task of supporting Alfred who was groaning with the pain and on the verge of fainting. "I think he was a targeted suicide."

"But how? He didn't look at any of the hijacked sites—did he?" Bruce seized a house phone with the hand that wasn't keeping Alfred from falling and called 911. Not surprisingly, it was busy. At that moment, people all over Gotham were probably using it for the exact same reason, to report an attempted—or successful—suicide.

"I don't know—Wait, he was reading Cory Witt's blog. Maybe that was it." Rachel found a bottle of vodka in a cabinet and used it to disinfect the cuts.

"Damn it." Bruce swore. "We can't wait for an ambulance to become available. We'll take him in my car."

It was not until some time later, once Alfred's hand had been stitched up and his prescriptions filled, that Bruce had a moment to remember what Jonathan Crane had speculated—that no one older than forty would be among the suicides or attempted suicides.

Alfred was considerably older than forty. It seemed that Crane was either wrong—or he was lying.

* * *

Jay lapsed into silence for several minutes, sitting there at the dining room table in what was now, for lack of a better phrase, our home. He lapsed into outward silence, anyway. His brain was ticking away, sketching out scenarios, as though what was going to happen once we got to the headquarters of the one or ones responsible was a choose-your-own-adventure book, and he was flipping through to find the ending he liked best. Finally his eyes refocused on the here-and-now. He stretched, cracking his knuckles, and smiled at me.

"Tell me, sassy girl—are you currently stuck in your nightie as it is? Or, uh, could you maybe make it look less like you just dropped down from heaven? Now don't go crying 'hentai' on me, because what I have in mind is making it look kind of grimy. Some smudges here and there, maybe some mud around the bottom, a few bloodstains, stuff like that."

After the surprise of finding out my clothes had changed without any help from me, I had tried to change them back, but without success. 'I can try.' I said, and focused. This, at least, I could still do, and my 'nightie', as he called it, soon looked as though I had been dragged through a demilitarized zone.

"Heh-hee! Very good. Okay, you can go back to looking like the angel you _almost_ are. I have a plan." He picked up his phone. "Lewis! I'm, uh, gonna need you to get a few things for me. Grab something to write with—and on. Okay. A pair of men's tennis shoes, white, size eleven, a can of spray paint in the shade…" He rattled off a list of things which said little for his sanity but which at least gave me an idea of where his plan was going.

"Plus a bottle of—Gracie, can you think of a really girly perfume? Something you'd wear?"

'Um—.' There is nothing like being put on the spot to make any and all possible answers fly out of one's head. '…Opium, Narcisse, Shalimar, Fracas—.'

"Fracas? As in a fight, brawl or melee? I like the, uh, sound of that one. What's it smell like?"

'Flowers. Tuberose, mainly.'

"Whatever that is. A nice big bottle of Fracas, too, Lewis. Well, you can get your girl to buy it, can't you? Work with me here. Yeah. Where? Uh—there's this convenience store on 92nd street,…1680 92nd street. Go in there, ask for Jose Rivera and tell him—Tell him the pizza is sour. No, you don't have to try their pizza, it's a code phrase. Got that? A couple of hours? Okay. And later, I'm gonna want to get everybody together at the Toybox. Don't share the convenience store address, I don't want them coming here. Right. Got ya. Bye."

He ended the call, then quickly placed another to the Riveras' number, telling them to admit a man who told them the pizza was sour. He added that the password would change every time, and not to take for granted that any visitor was welcome without it.

Once he was done, I said, 'Jay, it's sweet of you to think of getting me perfume, but exactly where am I going to wear it?' (I knew that wasn't what he had in mind. I just wanted to make him say it.)

"Oh, it's not for you. It's for me!"

A/N: Short, but hey, the next one _will_ be longer.


	74. Crane's Involvement

Crane was either wrong, or he was lying…

Either way, it didn't matter, since the result was the same. Moreover, since the former doctor had said more than once that his theory was only a theory, he couldn't be blamed for being wrong. Yet if he were right, he would have gotten full credit for it. Such were Bruce's thoughts as he brought the car around from the parking garage to the emergency room exit.

Alfred was waiting there, looking frail and unlike himself in a wheelchair (he was dizzy from the painkillers), with his sutured and bandaged hand immobilized in a sling. Rachel stood by his side, along with a hospital volunteer, a teenager in an oversized blue uniform jumper.

Stopping the car, he jumped out to help Alfred up from the chair as gently as he could, making the older man comfortable in the back seat. "I—am so sorry to cause you all this trouble, Master Wayne." said the butler, feebly.

"You should know better than to talk like that." Bruce told him, patting the uninjured hand of the man who had cared for him all his life. "We're going to go back to the penthouse now, and you're going straight to bed while I call the domestic service agency for some extra help. Rachel, are you coming with us?"

Bruce owed her more than ever, now. Alfred might have died there in the kitchen, crying out weakly for help, while Bruce was lifting weights several rooms away, unable to hear him over his own grunts of effort. Were it not for Rachel, he certainly would have. Some women among Bruce's acquaintance would have been helpless in such a situation, but her rapid thought and action had saved Alfred's life.

She shook her head. "I'm going to stay and see Harvey. Don't worry about me, I'll take a taxi back."

Bruce nodded. "Okay." He tried to tip the helpful volunteer, who was coatless and shivering, but she refused, so all that was left for him to do was get behind the wheel and drive Alfred home.

So: Crane was wrong. The suicides were not programmed solely by subliminal imagery hidden in on-line content. They were set off that way, as proven by what happened to the teenager, Jennifer Snow, in Schrecks' store, but all that talk about multitasking was so much hot air. How Bruce wished Alfred were conscious, or that Rachel was there to bounce ideas off of, as they had that morning, at breakfast. Was it really only that morning?

Then he remembered. He had another friend and ally upon whom he could call: Lucius Fox, whose niece Mahandra had been among the fifty-four who died at Gotham Central Station. Reaching for the speakerphone, he hit the speed dial for the Chairman of the Board of Wayne Industries. It took a moment, but it was Lucius himself who answered.

"Hello, Mr. Wayne."

"Hello, Lucius." Bruce replied, keeping an eye on the traffic. "How are you? I hope the issue of your niece's funeral has been resolved."

"It has. In light of these further tragedies, all opposition on the part of the minister has vanished—and likewise, in light of these further tragedies, I cannot imagine this is merely a condolence call on your part. My niece will be buried, but there is still the matter of justice, and I do desire justice. To that end, how might I be of assistance to you?"

Bruce took a deep breath, and by way of the rearview mirror glanced at Alfred, who was dozing in the back seat. "First let me explain…" As briefly and succinctly as possible, he told Lucius about Alfred's self-inflicted injury, Crane's inaccurate theories, and how the subliminals might trigger the suicides but were not necessarily the initial source of the, for lack of a better word, infection.

"I agree." Lucius replied when his employer had finished. "Clearly the subjects must be physically present when the—indoctrination takes place, or why go to all the expense and trouble of arranging the modeling open houses? The hair was merely a smokescreen, covering up their real purpose with the cloak of superstition. I do not believe anyone can cast a evil spell using fingernail clippings or a few strands of hair. There was no noose of hair found after the nurses' suicides. No. The real method is something else entirely."

"But then all the nurses and nursing students must have been some place where they could be infected." Bruce reasoned. "Probably the same place, to make it easier."

"Not necessarily." refuted Lucius. "That depends upon the mode of transmission. As I understand it, putting someone through the full 'Manchurian Candidate' process takes some time, which is what these people didn't have. Putting eighty nurses through a hundred hours of indoctrination each would be nearly impossible."

"Then how did they do it? I mean, we're talking about a very sophisticated method. These people just didn't drop over dead, they committed suicide in a lot of different ways weeks after the initial event. Whatever it is, it can override a person's sense of self-preservation, the ability to feel pain, and make them do elaborate things, like gathering together at certain times. Plus, they'd have to find their victims later to activate that programming. What could do that?" Bruce wrestled the car around a corner, onto his street.

He wasn't really expecting an answer, but he got one.

"Nanobots." Fox replied. "Microscopic machines capable of being programmed to perform specialized tasks in a closed system such as the human body. I use 'closed' loosely in this case. They're self replicating, and therefore self-renewing. They're still in the testing stages, but initial results show they can be used to identify and deliver medication directly to cancer cells, or synthesize insulin for a diabetic—and perhaps one day, they might be the fountain of youth, rebuilding and repairing any and all aging or malfunctioning cells within the body."

"Capable of replicating themselves? You make it sound like they're alive!" The traffic light directly ahead of him turned red, and he stopped.

"Perhaps some day they might be."

"Lucius, how could these nanobots get into someone's system?"

"The same way any germ gets there. Through a scratch, through the nose, mouth, or other mucous membrane. However, even though they could multiply within the body once they get there, the initial dose would have to be fairly substantial—say at least a half-teaspoon. That would be most easily administered through ingestion, in food or drink."

"And none of the survivors reported eating or drinking anything while on the premises."

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Wayne, but there's eating and drinking and then there's eating and drinking. Would you remember having a drink at a particular water fountain six weeks after the event?"

"I suppose not. Listen, can I call you back in a few minutes? I'm leaving the car to go upstairs."

"Certainly." They ended the call.

Bruce pulled over in front of his building, handed the keys to the building's parking valet, then roused Alfred to the point where he could walk with some help from his employer. Once he got up to the penthouse, he took the overcoat from around Alfred's shoulders, tossing it aside on a sofa. Then he tenderly helped the elderly man to his rooms and into his bed, removing his shoes and propping him up with pillows.

Going to the kitchen, he called Lucius again while he set about cleaning the place up. There was no sense in hiring a temporary cook-housekeeper if he or she quit immediately upon seeing a kitchen which looked like a crime scene. He began by capping the vodka and putting it away, then scraped the chopped vegetables on the cutting board into the garbage. He didn't like to waste food, but they were stained with Alfred's blood.

"Mr. Wayne. Good. I found the connection where the nurses are concerned. All of them attended a health care careers day at the Gotham Convention Center a month ago."

"I'm beginning to think Crane was lying, Lucius. If he knew the nanobots—if it is nanobots which are responsible—if he knew they were being disseminated at this career day, then he could have guessed that most of the attendees were forty or younger. When you're over forty, you usually have connections in your field already." Taking the roll of paper towels, the billionaire wet them and began wiping up the spatters and smears of gore.

"That brings us to the other connection I discovered. Two years ago, Crane took part in a symposium on the potential use of nanobots in treating mental disorders. He was very interested in the possibilities."

"Oh, I bet he did. What a liar… He smiles and looks so honest, so open and frank that you want to believe him. He's changed since Fear Night—Before that, he was kind of odd, very repressed. Since then, he gained in confidence and charm. He's in this up to his neck."

"It would seem so, Mr. Wayne."

"How long an incubation period would nanobots need before there were enough in someone's system to be effective?" The Wayne penthouse kitchen was not the sort of place where one found important household numbers stuck on the refrigerator door with magnets, but Alfred had to keep the records somewhere handy—Ah, there was a three ring binder next to the cookbooks.

"I've no idea." Lucius admitted. "There isn't enough literature on the subject. It could take weeks, or it might only take a few hours."

"Well, right now Alfred's in no condition to answer questions about where he might have picked up a dose of nanobots."

Bruce set the binder down on the counter next to a dish where Alfred kept odds and ends, some memorabilia like a marble from Bruce's boyhood, a ring of keys to who knew where, a few foreign coins, and a couple of hard candies.

Hard candies…Bruce took one from the dish. It was a red and white striped peppermint in a clear, unmarked wrapper. One could find bowls of these candies everywhere; in restaurants, on receptionists' desks, on store counters, free for the taking. They were made of sugar and peppermint oil, very cheap to make, and therefore a simple way of freshening the breath and offering a token of hospitality.

They weren't very good, not like chocolate, so no one took very many, but almost anyone would take one or two if someone urged them to. Maybe you wouldn't eat them right away, maybe they'd roll around in your pocket or in a woman's purse for a few hours, or even a few days, before you needed a sugar boost. And they all looked alike. Who would notice if someone switched them or added them to a bowl already partly full of such candies?

"Lucius—you said you don't believe in superstitions. Do you believe in hunches?"

"Yes, Mr. Wayne, I do."


	75. Hither And Yon

"What's the latest?" Commissioner Gordon asked from his place in the center of the War Room, as the HQ of the Major Crimes Unit was rapidly becoming known. A cacophony of noise, raised voices, ringing phones, drawers slamming, faxes and printers chattering, made it difficult to hear--or think.

"A yoga class at the 19th street YMCA, eight women, two men, and a female instructor attempted suicide, but the pipe they were trying to hang themselves from broke." reported an officer he barely recognized, speaking extra loudly. "All hospitalized at Mercy Osteopathic."

"Thank heaven for small favors. Anything else?"

"Fifteen teenagers jumped off the midtown freeway overpass, causing a multi-vehicle pile-up which so far has killed at least seven on the freeway below. Traffic is backed up in both directions for at least a mile and a half, and it'll be two hours or more before it's clear again."

"Any survivors?"

"One who only made it up on the railing before she was stopped. Montoya's got her."

"One survivor's better than no survivors. So far there are twenty-seven survivors, right?"

"Yes, sir—but we're wondering how many are copy-cat suicide attempts. The city's gone insane." The officer would have continued, but Gordon's attention had been drawn away by an auburn-haired woman who had just entered the War Room, two children behind her.

"Barbara, what are you doing here?" James Gordon asked his wife. Jimmy and Babs were obviously fine, but he could see the strain in his spouse's face.

"It's my mother. She's at Tanner's Point Medical Center. She tried to—she fell down a flight of stairs. Her hip is broken and she has spinal injuries."

"That's terrible." Gordon sympathized.

"Yes, and I have to be there, I'm next of kin. But I can't take Jimmy and Babs, the center is overcrowded and they're only allowing one visitor per patient. There's nobody who can come in who I trust and nowhere I can leave them—unless it's here." Barbara looked at him with appeal in her eyes.

Gordon cast a glance over his offspring, both of whom had their school bags. Babs, as usual, had her nose in a book, while Jimmy was showing too much interest in the crime scene photos on the bulletin board, which were from a particularly gruesome sex murder. A couple of desks away, a sergeant slammed his thumb in a drawer and cut loose with a stream of inventive profanity. "This isn't exactly a good environment for them—."

"It's a _safe_ environment, and today that's all I care about!" she flared up. "It's a building full of cops and their father is here! Can't you find some corner where they can—."

Bullock's voice cut across the War Room. "Commish! The Director of Arkham says Crane's gone missing!"

"And that's all we need." Gordon hurled a file folder to the floor in frustration. "They can go sit in my office. You know where it is, don't you?" he asked Babs.

She nodded. "Good. Don't break any city property and _don't_ play around on the computer. There's a private bathroom behind the one door and the vending machine is down the hall and to the right of it. Here's five—no, ten bucks, if you need it. Go on, Jimmy, go with your sister."

"Barbara, you did the right thing." He turned to his wife. "Go to your mother, do what you have to, and don't worry about us here."

"Thank you, Jim." She kissed him on the cheek before she left.

* * *

Jay: "All right." I looked over the twenty-odd expendables who were sitting on crates in what I liked to call my Toybox. "We are going, uh, to an undisclosed location—."

"Where is it?" asked one of the chuckleheads.

"Telling you would mean, uh, _disclosing_ it." I explained patiently. "and then it wouldn't be an _undisclosed_ location any more, would it? You'll find out when you get there. Or—no, come here." I beckoned to the chucklehead. "C'mere, c'mere."

'Oh, no, please don't do this.' Grace pleaded. I was the only one who could currently hear her, and no one could see her.

So I ignored her. Putting an arm around the chucklehead's shoulders, I whispered in his ear. "Y'see, _I_ don't even know yet. Isn't that a _hoot_?" Then, palming the knife I keep in my sleeve, I raised my voice. "Of course, now that I _told_ ya—I have ta _kill_ ya!" Giggling, I drew the blade across his neck, and the blood just poured out. "Hee-hee-hee!" I let the body fall.

'That was completely unnecessary and gratuitous.' Grace said, disgusted. 'However, it was also in character.'

"_Thank you, sassy girl_." I told her silently.

'If you keep on killing your men, someday you're going to run out of men', she predicted.

I proceeded. "Now, where was I? We are going to an undisclosed, uh, location to attack a compound of highly trained professional fighters who will be armed with swords, knives, nun-chucks, great big long sticks, and probably those throwing star things."

'You mean shuriken.' Grace commented from inside my head.

"Which are known as shuriken." I added smoothly. "They are, uh, also skilled in hand-to-hand combat and for all I know, they have the Jedi mind trick, too. Now, I know some of you like to, uh, think you're modern-day urban ninja, but compared to _these_ people, _you_ can't walk and chew gum at the same time."

'That's assuming they can walk and chew gum to begin with.' Grace scoffed.

"That's assuming, of course, that you can walk and chew gum to begin with. I know that might be a stretch for some of you, I'm not naming any names, uh, here, but don't come crying to me after you get your balls sliced off."

'Hey! Quit stealing my lines!'

I ignored her. "There are about eighteen-twenty fighters and about as many civilians. A third of the fighters are either women or very young men. Don't let that fool you; any of you ever see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?"

A few nods.

"Then remember it's the tiny little ones who, uh, look like they spend all day arranging flowers who are the most dangerous. Don't let your guard down and don't get too close. All of you are going to be using range weapons: grenade launchers, assault rifles, flamethrowers, and you'll be keeping them bottled up while I go in with a secret weapon."

'And what would that be?' Gracie asked sardonically, as one of my expendables asked, "What is it?"

I told her, privately, '_You, of course_.', while out loud I said, "Well, one of the fun-da-mental things about a secret weapon is—does anybody here know?"

Silence. After the undisclosed location business, nobody was about to volunteer and put their neck on the line. "Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?" I imitated the teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

"Class?" I asked again. "I'm gonna give you ten more seconds, and if nobody raises a hand, I'm gonna start shooting randomly."

Toward the back of the Toybox, Lewis raised a hand.

"Yes! Lewis, can you tell _everyone_ what one of the fundamental things about a secret weapon is?"

"It's a secret."

"Exactly! And for that correct answer, you get a shiny gold star and the privilege of driving the second vehicle. I'm driving the first, and you all get to follow."

"What do the rest of us get?" someone asked.

"A very good question." I nodded. "Whatever you find in the compound, uh, afterward is yours. Are we ready to go now? Good. Now get up off your asses and check out what's in those crates…"

* * *

Crying prettily is a gift. Some girls have it, and their eyes stream tragically while their noses never turn pink or swell up. Lark Blaine didn't have the knack. She was red-faced and blotchy, and her hair had frizzed up like a rust-brown Brillo pad.

Montoya took a box of tissues out of her bottom desk drawer and handed it to the teenager. "Lark, for what it's worth, in my opinion, you aren't a bad person just because you felt relieved that Twilla is never going to make fun of you anymore."

"But—but—I—."

"Look, suppose instead she'd told you that she and her family were moving to New Mexico and were never coming back, so you'd never see each other again. How would you feel then?"

"I— I guess I'd be glad." Lark gulped.

"And nobody in the world would blame you. She was horrible to you. But under those circumstances, you wouldn't think: 'Oh, if only she were dead,' would you?"

"No-o."

"Then you didn't _want_ her dead. All you wanted was for her to leave you alone. It's okay. _You're_ okay. Now if—." Her phone rang. "Sorry, just a second."

Picking up the receiver, she heard the Batman's raspy tones say, "Montoya." A thrill went down her spine.

"Yes?"

"Gordon's phone was busy." Batman said, abrupt and curt, clipping his words.

"Yeah, well, as you can imagine, it's pretty crazy around here."

"I know. I've been working."

"Uh-huh?" She shifted the phone to her other ear and waved to the commissioner.

"I've identified how people are programmed to commit suicide, and it isn't all done by subliminals. Crane was lying."

"Wait a moment. Commissioner! You should hear this!" Her mustachioed superior came over and took the phone.

He listened intently for a few moments, then said, "What? Peppermints?" Another moment. "Nano-whats? Yes, I'm going to need proof. Lots of it."

When the commissioner had first said he was going to deputize the vigilante, she had thought he was doing it for the sake of better publicity, pandering to the crowd. Then she had been selected to accompany the masked hero to Arkham.

While they interviewed Crane, part of her mind was saying: I have a degree in criminal justice and I've been on the force for seven years. He's a weirdo dressed as a _bat._ What is wrong with this picture?, another part of her mind was saying: Remember the movie All About Eve? Anne Baxter was supposed to be the one poised on the verge of superstardom. Then Marilyn Monroe comes on the screen and nobody can look away, because whatever it is that makes a star, _she_ has it, and Anne Baxter just doesn't.

Except that this was real life, and the stakes were much higher, and yet the metaphor still held. There was something about Batman that said: This is the future. This is the next big thing. And you couldn't look away…

* * *

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	76. What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen

I was bloody furious at him—and with myself, because I had not thought of a way to stop him, and because, somehow, as naive as it might have been of me—I had hoped for better from him. Why? Because it seemed as though we were getting closer? Because I liked him better? Because I was an idealistic fool, for all my cynicism?

Anyhow, on with the story.

We started off with five vehicles of 'expendable' henchmen following us, and wound up with…one. This had nothing to do with how we were navigating, (following my ghost lights, which was easier than anticipated.), nor, I suspected, in their ability to tail our car, and quite a lot to do with their sense of self-preservation.

After all, who would follow a guy who would cut his own man's throat simply because to him it was a good joke? I didn't have a choice (or a throat to cut), and Lewis, the driver of the only vehicle to arrive at our destination, had an ulterior motive—the book he was writing. Jay's considerable ego meant that Lewis was fairly safe.

I had told him that if he kept on killing his men, he was going to run out of men. I just didn't expect it would happen so soon.

He was not going to like this.

With any luck, however, he would learn something from it. (Speaking of luck, all the weaponry was in our car, so the truants wouldn't be rampaging loose in Gotham with Jay's rocket launchers and assault rifles.)

Pulling into the field by the road going into the compound, Jay finally noticed he didn't have as many cars following him as he'd started with.

"Huh." he said. "Well, they can have until I get changed to catch up." He reached in the back, around the flamethrowers, and grabbed the duffel bag. In order to change, he had to get out of the car and use the door for a screen. Except I was still riding shotgun in his head, and couldn't get away. It was…a mildly traumatic experience, and I didn't even see all of it. The sound effects were enough.

After a while, I asked, 'Aren't you decent yet?'

"Well, the, uh, _basics_ are covered." he replied.

'You better not be lying, hentai…What seems to be the problem?'

"It's these goddamn pantyhose." he complained.

I looked. 'Aaaaighhhhhh!' I shrieked. Jay…in shirttails…and pantyhose over white lace…and men's tennis shoes spray-painted hot pink. 'What has been seen cannot be unseen! Eeewww!'

"Are you done yet?" he asked.

'Eeewww! Not quite. Eeewww!'

"Enough with, uh, the melodrama, sassy girl. I'm having enough difficulties already."

'I can see that. Those pantyhose are way too small for you,' I told him, watching him shift and tug at the waistband.

"Uh-uh. According to the, uh, little chart on the back of the package here, they're exactly right for my weight and height." He squirmed around some more.

'Any woman could tell you those charts are _never_ right. If you want to be able to walk and sit, you have to go two sizes up. Otherwise the crotch creeps down to your knees and you have to walk like a penguin.'

"Hmm." He regarded the panty hose, which were already slithering southward. "That does explain the problems I had at the hospital…"

'And I can't help but think that you and your "boys" would be more comfortable in your usual briefs than in those—those…' Words failed me. 'Lacy white unmentionables.' I finished. That which has been seen cannot be unseen…

"They are kind of itchy." he admitted. "How do you women manage to go all day without, uh, scratching your crotches all day long?"

'Well, to begin with, a pair like those aren't meant to be worn all day long. Those you put on while you're getting ready in the bathroom, and they come off fifteen-twenty minutes later. There are plenty of pretty ones which feel nice as well as look nice, and if you _have_ to cross dress to the skin, I'll gladly advise you. But—I have to tell you that every moment you're wearing those is a moment I find you _less_ sexually attractive.'

"Oh, well, if you're going to put it that way…"

'Yes, I am.' I went back to not looking. 'Are you decent _now_?'

"As I'll ever be."

'That's just in your opinion. Are you sure you're going to be warm enough?'

Jay was wearing his briefs again—or so I assumed, because the white lacy things and pantyhose were on the passenger's seat, and he was wearing his own socks again. As for what else he was wearing—he was adjusting the hem of a full-length sleeveless white nightgown which wasn't that different from mine, and the pink shoes showed underneath. A long black wig waited in a bag on the driver's seat.

"Hey, uh, once the lads get going with the flamethrowers, there'll be plenty of heat." As I watched, he reached for the package of Fracas, opened it, and sprayed some in the air. "Ah, lovely!" He doused his wrists, armpits and neck.

'Tell me again why this is a good idea. Maybe it'll sound better the third time.' I waited.

"Well—." He reached for his makeup kit and wiped off his mouth. "For cultural reasons, they're more afraid of you than they are of me, right? So with two Grudges, they'll be scared twice as shitless."

'Correction: we know _one _of them is more afraid of me than she is of you. It doesn't mean they all will be.'

"Well, then," He reached for a tube I had never seen him use before. Dabbing some green under his eyes and cheekbones, then blending it in, he quickly went from demented clown to cadaverous…cross-dressing ghost? "It won't hurt to divide and conquer. Confusion to the enemy, right?"

'Confusion to more than just the enemy, pal. Remember that although I might be blade and bullet-proof, _you're_ not. And speaking of blades, when you cut that guy's throat back there in the Toybox—.'

"Awww, Gracie. Always with the scruples..." He paused in blending black and green paint together on his lips, a ghastly effect.

'I thought—I'd hoped—Look. That wasn't funny, it wasn't cool, it was just you being an asshole, and a _dumb_ asshole at that. It was stupid. You didn't even enjoy it! I know there's no way of appealing to your better nature, since you don't have one, but might I suggest you consider acting out of enlightened self-interest?'

"I'm, uh, afraid you've lost me there, sassy girl."

'Take a look around, you_ idiot_. Those other sixteen lads of yours—they're not lost. They didn't get stuck in traffic or take a wrong turn. They're not here and they're not going to be here. _They're not coming_.'

* * *

I looked around. Grace was right. There were only Lewis and three others—and none of the three looked all that happy about it. Not that Lewis looked happy, exactly, but at least he didn't look negative.

'Nobody is expendable to themselves.' she concluded, more quietly.

For a moment I was stupefied. _They can't do this to me—._

'Yes, they can, and I don't blame them. You're unpredictably moody, violent, vicious, and prone to killing people on a whim. Too many of your followers have died, one way or another, and quite a few of them at your hands. The ones who went with us to Talia the Warrior Princess's place, plus the ones who wound up in the Batcave, and now that guy today—what does that make, seven or eight? Did you think nobody would notice that they never came home? Your men don't trust you because they know they can't trust you.'

She paused. 'For that matter,_ I_ don't trust you.'

"You don't?" I was genuinely surprised.

'If I woke up tomorrow morning to find that I was flesh and blood, with all my powers gone, I'd be out of that apartment so fast it would make your head spin. Inside of half an hour, I'd be knocking on Bruce Wayne's door asking for sanctuary. A lion tamer may raise a cub from a bottle, work with it every day of its life, and even love it, and that lion, when it's grown, might still turn one day and rip her throat out in play. Because a lion is not a human being, and neither are you. Not in the ways that matter.'

"Well, who would want to be human?" I retorted, but her remark stung. Why? Because—because I thought she knew me better than that? I was the guy who wasn't sure whether I wanted to kiss her or kill her. No, it stung because it rang so true. I tried to frame a more serious answer.

"Gracie, I would never hurt you. Never. You have my word on that." And I meant it.

'That's nice.' She said after a moment. 'But the problem is, 'hurt' is such a slippery word, like torture. The definitions change according to who's on which end. It's so easy to go from, "I would never hurt you." to, "I didn't hurt you, so stop crying. I didn't even leave a mark," and from there it's downhill to, "Look, it's only a broken bone. It'll heal, and I'll pay to have your nose fixed." Any woman who thinks that's love is only fooling herself.'

"Okay, then I give you my word I'll never hurt you according to your definition of it. Satisfied?"

'If it were only that easy. But when someone you care about does wrong, it hurts to see them do it. Why did you kill that guy, Jay? Do you even know?'

Did I? She was right, I hadn't enjoyed it. Maybe—maybe it was a way of reasserting some control over my life, the control which had vanished the moment she first spoke to me. "It's a pack leader thing. When you're the top dog, you have to remind all the other mutts from time to time."

'Even feral dogs know to avoid the rabid ones. What are you going to do _now_?'

What _was_ I going to do? I'd planned this out for twenty, not four, men around the perimeter, and of those four, three looked like they'd just as soon turn on me as on the ninjas (or whatever they were) in the compound. There was no question of giving up and going back, not now that we'd arrived here.

I had to get them on my side again, and I had to do it fast. I had to convince them I didn't think of them as expendable—no, I had to do more. I had to convince them that I had planned this to happen from the beginning. And that would not be easy.


	77. Making New Friends

A/N: To my reviewer shiftedsoul. fanfiction dot net won't let people put email addresses or websites in their reviews or stories as is; I would love to see your picture, but you'll have to put spaces between things like this: www . lush . com

Also, I would like recommend a very, very dark, unconventional fic called Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas by my friend Lasgalendil. It's amazing. Go check it out.  


* * *

"…Thank you, Mrs. Noah. Lark will be waiting in the commissioner's office. Bye now, and good luck with the traffic." Detective Montoya hung up and smiled at Lark. "Your grandmother says it should take her about forty-five minutes to an hour to get here. Do you think you'll be okay until then?"

"Yes." Lark said, dutifully. It was the sort of thing you had to say, unless you were actually bleeding or about to throw up or something like that. She wanted to tell the detective that she didn't have a single friend in the world, and she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, or at least not until she was ten years older, old enough not to care. However, the problems she had now were not the kinds of problems police detectives dealt with, even though Detective Montoya had been very nice to her. Lark felt a lot better now, she truly did, but she still felt empty and lost.

Montoya took her down a hall and showed her into an office that obviously belonged to somebody important. You could tell by the dark polished wood furniture with leather upholstery. "It shouldn't be too long." The detective told her. "I can trust you to behave in here, right?"

"Yes."

"Good—that's the commissioner's son, Jimmy, there on the sofa—." A boy, seven years old or so, had his feet up and was sitting sideways, playing with a portable game console. He had sandy hair, and he barely glanced in their direction, but he nodded and made eye contact. "His daughter's around here somewhere too." A toilet flushed nearby, and they heard water running. "I'll leave you two to introduce each other, okay?"

Obviously the detective was needed elsewhere. "Okay." Lark replied.

A moment after Montoya left, a door opened, and a girl emerged, asking, "Who was that, Jimm—Oh." She stopped when she saw Lark. "Uh—hi. I'm Barbara Gordon."

"You mean Babs." replied her brother.

"Shut up, Jimmy," she explained. She was younger than Lark, by at least a year or two, which was good, because younger kids didn't make fun as much, but she had very beautiful red hair, which was bad, because anyone with something that obviously superior about them was unlikely to be friendly.

"I'm Lark Blaine." Lark said, cautiously.

"Lark—you mean, like the bird?" Barbara asked.

"No. Well, yes, like the bird, but a lot more like 'rhymes with bark'." Lark said and then winced, aghast that she had come right and told this girl exactly how to start making fun of her.

But the other girl screwed her face up sympathetically and moaned, "Aw, no! I hate when people do that! My folks named _me_ after Mom and Jimmy after Dad—sometimes I want to scream and say, 'Weren't you imaginative enough to give us our _own_ names?'—so they call me—well, you heard Jimmy call me 'Babs', so at school they call me 'Blabs' Or 'Babble,' which is just as bad. Oh—hey, you want to sit down? Jimmy, get your shoes off the sofa, it's city property…"

* * *

'While you do that,' I told Jay, 'I'm going to do some reconnaissance work, and find out _who_ is scared by ghosts down that road and_ how_ scared they are.' I was too overwrought to stick around him right now; existential crises or no, I wanted some alone time. 'So have fun.'

"I will!" he howled after me as I separated invisibly from him and floated off. Once I got past the initial fringe of trees, I had a better sense of space, and even more so when I soared up into the sky to get a better view. (I couldn't call what I was doing flying, not when I couldn't achieve more than a walking pace. It was more like drifting.) So I drifted, and I saw—.

The compound was located on a piece of land sandwiched between Gotham and a nearby suburb, an area which had been the home of the textile mills back before the industry went overseas in the sixties. The buildings, which had been built cheaply and quickly back in the late 1800s-early 1900s, from half-baked brick and half-green timber, were only skeletons of their former selves—the roofs fallen in, weeds and young trees growing up through the floors, might have been a series of ruined castles, or a post apocalyptic landscape, ripe for filming a steampunk movie.

I couldn't see the main house, yet, but I could see several people who were trying very hard to blend into their background and not precisely succeeding. Although they were trying to hide from visible intruders proceeding at ground level and not invisible, silent ones gliding down from tree-top height, which had to make a difference. Time to pick a victim and sneak up on him…

I picked a likely looking candidate hiding in a thicket, a young man who was probably Thai. Not only don't all Asians look alike, but there are regional differences as well as individual differences. Just as anybody who knows anything about European countries could look at three women and guess which was Bridget from Ireland, as opposed to Helga from Germany or Giada from Italy, so somebody who knows anything at all about Asian countries can tell the difference between Naoko from Japan, Choeki from Bhutan, and Damrong from Thailand—even before any of them open their mouths. He looked Thai to me. End of diatribe.

I slipped down behind him. He was clad in drab browns and grays, the better to fit into this mid-fall landscape, and he had a blackened blade, of which only the cutting edge gleamed in this half-shade. He smelled—yummy, actually. Not like Jay did, no. This boy—and he wasn't much more than a boy—smelled good enough to eat, which momentarily confused me until I realized I was smelling the spices coming out of his pores. One can tell a lot about someone's diet from how they smell.

'Hello.' I whispered into his ear. He gasped, whirling and slicing right through me. I laughed, retreating a few yards. 'You can't kill me, Pichai.' He _was_ Thai; I couldn't read his mind like I could Jay's, but I could see the surface of his psyche. Something new…

Anyhow, now I knew his particular fears. The peaa pob, a female ghost with a beautiful face and exposed organs hidden under her long white dress. Nang Naak, the woman who so loved her husband that she returned—only to kill the neighbors who tried to tell him she was dead. She liked to break necks, then eat her victims' heads with lots of chili sauce.

"How do you—That is no longer my name. I am Garrote."

'Really? Then I need not hold back. I promised Nong Jitplee, who in her last incarnation sold her body to feed her son Pichai, that I would not touch him. If you are not him—do you want to see what's under my dress?' I smiled at him.

He gasped when I said his mother's name, and paled as I drifted toward him. "Who are you?"

'Call me—Nang.' I said. Then I flicked out and was behind him. 'You'll go _so_ good with chili sauce…' If I only had a tongue, so I could lick his ear… I could hear his heart beat faster, smell the sweat that beaded on his brow. He hardly needed to shave yet; his skin still had that soft, velvet translucency.

"I am Pichai, I am!"

'That's better. How many people have you killed, Pichai?' I could see how I looked to him—like the iridescent sheen on rotting meat, beautiful but corrupt. Which was a pity, because he was quite good-looking and had I been alive (and provided there was no Jay in my life) I might have gone for him.

"Seventeen."

'Seventeen.' I repeated. 'But you were brought up to be a good Buddhist. You learned the five precepts, and the first of those is to kill nothing intentionally.'

Every religion worthy of the name has as one of the basics, "Thou shalt not kill." God is very clear about that one, no matter what name He goes by at the time. 'How does Pichai live with that sin? And you should have a good answer, Pichai. A very good answer.'

He squeezed his eyes shut. "It's Garotte who kills. Not Pichai. Pichai died when he entered the Fortress."

'Not a good enough answer.' I moved around to whisper into his other ear. 'For Pichai is here right now.' It was a pity no one was here to film this, a handsome young warrior being harassed by a predatory wraith.

"I—there was a monk who assassinated the king of Tibet that he might not accrue more bad karma through his evil deeds." He did not sound particularly confident about the morality of that.

'That old excuse.' I said, quite disgusted. 'And when you killed those seventeen people, was it with the thought that you were saving them from their future sins?'

"No." he breathed. "No."

'You are in a very poor line of work. As a friend, I suggest you find another. One last thing. Tell me, do you know who is causing the suicides in Gotham City?'

"No. I don't know it."

'Too bad. Now, Pichai—.' I said, intimately.

"Yes?"

'RUN!' I roared, in a wild burst of white shroud shreds and demonic hair, sending my ghost lights after him.

That had been too easy. Hopefully the next one would provide more of a challenge.


	78. Influencing People

Grace. Gracie. My sassy girl. What a _bitch_ she could be…

Everything I disliked most about her came back to me: how she was prissy, preachy, annoying, a know-it-all, a testicle devouring shrew—Hadn't I just rented her a lovely (and extremely expensive) apartment that morning, just like she wanted?—No, wait. She hadn't wanted or asked for anything. _I_ was the one who wanted heat and running water.

Unfortunately, however, she was right. I mentally replayed the moment when I drew what's-his-name aside and gave him a smile under his chin. If I'd been paying better attention, I would have noticed how quiet and unhappy the Toybox got when I did that.

Goddamn it, what a _stupid_ move! What the hell was I thinking? I hadn't even enjoyed it; I'd just done it, and if I'd sat down to think about it for a week, I couldn't have come up with a more suicidal, self-sabotaging blunder. Why—I didn't have time for this right now. No. What I had to do right now was fix things.

I strode over to the other car. The three who Lewis had brought along were ready to kill both him and me at any moment, I read it in their tense body language, the hands that rested on or near weapons, the eyes that were never still. It was showtime…

"Good," I said, surveying all four of them and nodding in approval. "All the, uh, chickenshits are weeded out." I let a big smile cross my face as I looked from one to the other, beaming. "Martin, m'man!" I slapped the arm of the one nearest me. "You helped haul me in and dump me on Gambol's pool table. Great times, huh? And Rafe. If there's a better sniper out there in Gotham, I don't know who it is. Lewis, of course—I know you got my back. You're a rock. And Kelvin! The Kelvinator! Barbeque on the south side. This is old school here. It takes me back."

It was working, I could tell. They were loosening up. "From today, you four are my made men. The inner circle. Did, uh, Lewis tell you about my new crib? No? Well, we're gonna have a house-warming party, with my gal Gracie mixing up the drinks—Aaah, but, I'm uh, getting ahead of myself here." I didn't actually intend to have the party in our place; I wanted that to be private, but I would throw them a party somewhere. And who knew—Grace might turn out to be good at mixing drinks once she was solid.

"What you want to know is, what the hell are we here for? Well, uh, y'see—those people down there—they're responsible for the suicides. The cops were trying to hook them on me, and you know me. If I did something, I'll admit to it. And then there's the issue of turf—not to mention that I find their techniques offensive. That's a funny way to put it, I know, but—Kelvin? You look like you, uh, got something you want to say."

"Yeah. I wanna piece of these mofos." Kelvin had a voice like a mournful basset hound with a foghorn stuck in his throat, so he didn't often say much. "My auntie Tamara was one a'dose nurses and my mama ain' stop crying since."

"You must have thought a lot of your aunt." I observed.

"Yeah." he replied.

"All right—how about you go get yourself a flamethrower?"

"'Kay."

Kelvin's sudden agreement sealed it: I was back.

* * *

Harvey Dent waited behind the door. The current wave of suicides was a big enough emergency that for the moment, at least, there was no one watching him. Patiently and obsessively, he had frayed one of the cotton straps which bound him to the bed until it broke. From there it was a simple thing to free his other hand, and then his legs. Thanks to the meningitis, he was a little shaky, but he was still strong. Strong enough to do what he had to do.

He had lain there awake for hours, thinking over all the possible futures which lay before him, and he did not like any of them. Things which people had said to him and about him reverberated in his head.

The Joker: "_I only let out what was there all along, under the surface. I took your illusions from you, Harv. Nothing more. __You__ did the rest_."

"_And what about his career? Will the DA's office be waiting for him to come back?_" the Joker had asked.

'_He can build another career—._' That was the Joker's Grace, the odd, dark haired girl.

"_Doing what? Who's going to hire a weird-looking guy fresh out of the looney bin?_" the Joker had laughed.

'_Oh, I'm sorry. Are we talking about him now or about you?_' she shot back.

The Joker went on. "_And then there are alllll those criminals waiting to take a bite out of you, Harvey Two-Face. If that's the future, you're better off becoming maggot food here than making an effort to come back. Or—you can get into my racket._"

'_Don't listen to this. Evil is like a whirlpool. It pulls you in_.' She was trying to save him, but for what?

"_Become your own crime wave. Get somebody to make you up some suits to match the new you—half Wall Street, half Skid Row—rob a few banks, hold some people for ransom. Decide who lives and who dies with the flip of a coin. Become such a big shark the little guys don't dare take a bite of you for fear of attracting your attention_." Again, the Joker.

"_Then I have to face the fact that he'll never recover fully, physically or mentally. Not ever. I love him anyway, and it hurts me, it hurts… I don't know what I'm going to do_." Rachel's beloved voice, saying things he was never meant to hear. "_But…sometimes, sometimes, I look at him and I think: if only he'd died. Then I could mourn him properly. I'd hurt and I'd bleed inside but one day it would be over._"

Once more, the Joker. "_It's up to you, Harvey. Come to the Dark Side; we have cookies. The wages of sin are death, sure, but so is the salary of virtue, and sin is more fun_."

'_Maybe so, but virtue has a much better retirement plan_.' Grace, the tarnished angel, fighting for his soul against the laughing demon.

"_Do I marry him now, as he is?_" Rachel asked Bruce, "_Because if I do, I know what's going to happen. My whole life is going to revolve around him. Children will be out of the question. With his impulse control problems and his anger issues, how could I even think about bringing them into our lives? Besides, he'll become my child—he'll need as much attention as any child, with the appointments and court dates, and keeping track of his meds. And then, one day, will I do what his mother did to his father, and have him institutionalized?_"

"_**Become your own crime wave. Get somebody to make you up some suits to match the new you—half Wall Street, half Skid Row—rob a few banks, hold some people for ransom. Decide who lives and who dies with the flip of a coin. Become such a big shark the little guys don't dare take a bite of you for fear of attracting your attention**_."

"_Let's see what I'm going to do_." He brought out his father's coin, preparing to flip it, back there in the motel room.

'_No!_' Grace had protested. '_Not with the coin. That's a gimmick, a cheap piece of shtick. You are a human being. You have a soul. You have free will. Life is much more complicated and important than a simple yes or no question. Think about what you're doing before you choose._'

Denied his coin, he had lain awake through the darkest hours of the night, considering what few options there were to him, and he had finally made up his mind. He could not go back to who he had been, that was certain, but as he looked forward, he could see two paths his life could take. Grace's—or the Joker's.

Yes, he could cooperate, go to trial, be examined and found criminally insane, be institutionalized. Rachel would be there by him through it all, repressing and subsuming her desire for a normal life, a family and children. He knew her too well to suppose she would abandon him. She might even take the post Wayne offered her; it was something she would be good at. But what would _he_ do? Where was _his_ future, when all his best days were behind him?

Or…, to turn Milton's famous words around, since he couldn't serve in Heaven, wouldn't it be better to reign in Hell—or over a portion of it? Crimes to plan, underlings to order around, schemes to formulate—wasn't that much preferable to the limbo of mental illness? And so he had made his choice. Better to go down dignified to his own corner of Hell than wait timidly in the corner for death to free him one day.

That left one loose end. And she was knocking on the door right now. "Harvey? It's me. It's Rachel." He hated the false cheeriness she forced into her voice, the fake smile on her bright lips. Opening the door, she noticed the empty, disheveled bed immediately. "Harvey?"

"Hello, Ray." He said, slamming the door shut behind her and putting a chair under the handle to lock out any rescuers. "It's me. It's—Two-Face." He hissed the 'c' in face, drawing it out.

"Harvey." She dropped the forced cheer immediately. "You shouldn't be out of bed, Harvey. Let me call a nurse—." But he reached her before she could reach the call button or the phone.

"You faithless lying little bitch." Harvey seized her wrists, tossing her purse across the room. He knew she had mace in there, and her cell phone. This time, _this time _he was in complete control. He wanted to hurt her, but carefully, just so much, and no more. "Don't think I don't know what you're up to. 'Oh, Harvey, don't lose hope. We'll get through this, believe me.'"

Mimicking her tones, he drew her in close, close enough to kiss—but now his good eye was beginning to leak, because this was Rachel, and if there was an 'it' in his life, a true love, she was 'it', and he didn't want to hurt her, no, not at all, but he had to—.

"I don't know what you mean." Rachel said, brave as ever, and his heart broke.

"I mean Wayne—and Gordon—and anything else with a dick you come across, you _filthy_ whore." he lied, and he was a convincing liar. _Let her believe, and believing, give up. Let her stop loving me_.

"Harvey—No." she gasped, as his hands found her neck and squeezed. "No."

"Shut up!" He wasn't squeezing hard enough to choke her, not yet. Now he turned and slammed the back of her head into the closet door. She had a thick bun of hair to cushion her skull, he knew. He was counting on that. "SHUT UP!" He slammed her against the door again, over her protests—and then taking careful aim, punched her in the jaw with enough force to knock her out. He lowered her to the floor very gently, crying now, because he did love her. Would this be enough? Should he do more? But what?

Seeing a lipstick that had escaped from her bag and rolled across the floor, he took it. It was a shade called Raven Red, very dark. He used it to paint half her face a deep and sullen maroon, then unbuttoned her blouse—which made him cry again, at the memory of unbuttoning that same garment the night they became lovers. How happy, how sweet those hours had been!—and wrote WHORE across her chest with it.

"I love you, Rachel." he said, in less than a whisper, before he left the room and the hospital for good. "Be free. Have a good life. Be happy."

* * *

Lady Shiva oozed through the ramshackle textile mill like a slim, dark viper, tracking the woman in white. Born after Mao's Cultural Revolution, which had eradicated centuries of art, literature, and folklore (most significantly, at the moment, _ghost stories_), Lady Shiva saw a woman with long, disheveled hair in a long white dress as only a woman with messy hair in impractical clothes, and not a ghost. Even if she did move as easily and silently as Lady Shiva herself, she was not a fighter. In fact, she barely seemed aware of her surroundings, and not at all of her stalker.

Although—the tilt of this unknown woman's head as she rounded a wall and passed out of Shiva's range of vision said otherwise. Lady Shiva read body language better than she did English, and she was fluent in English. Something was wrong. Shiva stopped. Was she being _led_ rather than following unnoticed?

"Qingwen, where is Zijuan? Where is your little sister?"

Lady Shiva whirled. Behind her, in the shadows at the archway, stood a small figure in faded work clothes. Although half-hidden, Shiva knew that face, that voice. Even though fifteen years had passed, they were engraved upon her memory. Even fifty years would not dim them in her mind. Her mother, Xueyan.

_Their_ mother. Hers and Zijuan's.

"Zijuan is dead." Lady Shiva said, her voice perfectly level. "And our mother is dead, so whatever or whoever this is, it is not my mother."

'Nevertheless, I ask you: where is Wu-san Zijuan, your younger sister, whom you promised you would take care of?' The voice had changed, to a complete stranger's, and the figure changed too, growing several inches taller, the slight stoop of age yielding to the reed-straightness of youth, the work clothes turning white. It was the strange woman Lady Shiva had been following.

"Zijuan is dead, by the order of Ra's Al Ghul." Lady Shiva said. "And I am no longer Qingwen. I am Lady Shiva. Who are you?"

'I'm what makes you wake at night and jam your fist in your mouth, biting yourself to keep from crying out. I'm the things you've done come home to roost.' There was something wrong about the woman, something which stirred an atavistic memory which extended back through generations, and all the hairs on Lady Shiva's neck and arms stood on end. A greenish, sourceless light illuminated the woman's face 'I'm the Grudge.'

"I do not appreciate your attempt at humor, if such it is. I do not wake at night. I sleep like the dead. Nothing disturbs me."

'I know better. How did Zijuan, your little sister, die, Qingwen?'

"An assassin from the League of Shadows killed her, at, as I told you, the order of Ra's Al Ghul." Her heart beat faster in her chest, but years of training enabled her to calm herself. _There is no fear, there is no fear_.

The Grudge drifted forward without moving a limb. 'Her bloodied ghost says you sin by omission. Who was that assassin?'

"I had no choice, since you seem to know all about it. It was her or me. A fight to the death, he said, and we fought." Shiva's heart raced, because her instincts were now telling her to _get away_.

The Grudge came closer still. 'There are _always_ other choices. You could have let Zijuan win, and kept your word. One or other or the both of you could have refused to fight.'

The day darkened around the two of them, because the woman she faced _was_ shadows, and that curtain of dark hair invoked mystery and horror. Still, she scoffed. "And have us _both_ die?"

'Being dead is not so bad, believe me.' the Grudge spoke, with the authority of one who knows. 'Better than living with your promise broken and the blood of your sister on your hands, anyway.'

"If you mean to strike me down with guilt, you will be unsuccessful, for I tore out my heart and burned it long ago." Lady Shiva said, "I feel _nothing_. I am all cold cinders and ashes inside, and have been since before Ziajuan's death. That changed nothing."

'I believe you.' The Grudge drifted closer still, until her hair should have brushed Lady Shiva's cheek. Her full lips hovered around Shiva's ear, but there was no breath issuing from them. 'If you can't be made to suffer for what you've done one way, I'll have to come up with another.'

Something cool and light, like a moth's wing or a flower petal, brushed Lady Shiva's cheek. 'There. _That's_ my curse on you. When you've learned what it means to suffer, come to me, and I'll tell you how to break it.'

Her cheek itched, and Shiva raised a hand to touch the place, feeling a few small bumps under the skin. "_Acne_? You've cursed me with _pimples_?" she laughed.

'Not exactly. See you later.' The Grudge's lips smiled, and she vanished.

The welcome sunlight streamed back in the ruined factory, and Lady Shiva breathed a tiny sigh of relief. However—the place where the Grudge had kissed her, or cursed her, still itched. Stroking it, rather than scratching it and breaking the skin, Shiva realized it had already grown in size, from the diameter of a dime to that of a quarter. What did it look like?

She recalled where there was a small spring on the grounds, where she could wash her face and get a glimpse of herself reflected in the water. One of Lady Shiva's weapons was her beauty, after all, and she kept her weapons battle ready at all times.

* * *

A/N: According to Wikipedia, Lady Shiva's birth name is Sandra Wu-San, and her sister was Carolyn. Since I was already making some changes, I gave them Chinese first names. Also, if you didn't get my message, Shiftedsoul, I _love_ your drawing. May I link to it?

And once again, I am behind on review replies. Sorry. I appreciate every review; it's simply that I have to choose between writing replies or writing the next chapter, and I figure you'd rather have another chapter.


	79. Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

"…you'll love Jane Eyre, I swear," Babs said, writing her name on the fly leaf of her book, "I'm going to put our phone number down, too, because Dad won't let us anywhere near a computer until all this is over. The suicides, I mean."

"But he's right." Lark replied, "because he said, on the news, that Gothamscene was one of the sites people should stay away from, and Twilla went on it anyway, she and her friends. They were staring at it for a whole hour, and then—You know, it doesn't seem _real_ now. I was there, and I saw it happen, but it's like Twilla could walk in that door right now and it wouldn't seem weird at all."

"I think I know what you mean." Babs said. "It's—I don't know—Do you read Death Note?" she asked, referring to a manga series. The premise behind the series was that there was a magic notebook which would kill anyone whose name was written in it, and the havoc such power would cause. At the start of the story, the owner of the notebook, a boy named Light, was haunted by a death spirit named Ryuk, and pursued by law enforcement agencies around the world. His nemesis was a detective known only as L, a supergenius who lived on a diet of sweets.

"Yes!" Lark's eyes lit up. "I haven't read all of them yet, but I just _love_ L."

"Then you don't know—" Babs clapped both hands over her mouth. "No, no, I won't say it."

"It's okay. I know they kill him off, that's why I haven't read the rest. I've been writing a story where he doesn't die, and—but it's not done yet."

"Oh, hey." Babs leaned over conspiratorially, "doesn't Ryuk look like the Joker? Or maybe it's the other way around."

"Yeah—but I'll tell you who he really looks like. If the Joker and the Grudge had a son, he'd look _just like_ Ryuk when he grew up—wouldn't he?"

"Yes! You're right!" The two of them had a good laugh at the thought.

"Hey, can you keep it down?" Jimmy asked. "I'm trying to do math over here."

"You should have done it _before_ you started playing your game." His sister chided.

"I don't see you doing yours." He retorted.

"It's already done." Babs told him smugly.

He stuck his tongue out at her; she threw a cushion at him, and went back to her conversation with Lark. "Anyhow, with these suicides, it's like there really _is_ something like a Death Note, except the person who has it isn't even trying to do good with it like Light did at the start."

"Okay—but why would everybody be committing suicide?" Lark asked.

"Maybe it's a Suicide Note." Babs shrugged. "and the only thing the person who writes the names out gets to choose is where and when and how people commit suicide."

"But it doesn't always work." Lark pointed out. "Or—have you ever seen Hell Girl? It's an anime."

"No—I don't get to watch a lot of TV. I like reading better, anyway."

"But you'd like this one. There's this message board that only exists at midnight, and if you log on, you can post the name of somebody who you want dead, and then you get a visit from Hell Girl. She gives you a little doll with a red cord, and a warning. If you untie the cord, the person will die and go to hell—but so will you. Eventually, anyway. The person you want dead dies right away."

"I like that idea." Babs sat up. "I mean, Light never worries about the consequences. He doesn't want to get caught because he thinks he's got this holy mission. But what if you had to give up a year of your life for every person whose name you wrote in the book? I bet you'd be a lot more choosy about who you picked to die. _That_ would make a great story."

"It would." Lark agreed. "but it seems like there's all this scientific stuff behind the suicides, I mean, with the computers and subliminal images and everything. It isn't _magic_."

"If you had magic, wouldn't you want to hide it?" Babs asked. "I mean, computers and cell phones and planes and even air conditioning, they'd be like magic to somebody from five hundred years ago, but only because they wouldn't understand how they worked. Today, people are used to using all those things even if they don't understand exactly how they work. All they do is push a button, and things happen. They expect the room to get colder, or to call their aunt in Rhode Island. So if you put enough technological stuff around magic, even if people didn't understand exactly how the technology worked, they'd just think it was something too advanced for them to understand, not that it was actually magic."

"Yeah, but—." Lark creased her brow as she tried to work out the logic behind that statement.

Someone knocked on the door of the commissioner's office. "Lark Blaine? Your grandmother's here." It was one of the secretaries.

Behind her stood Grams, her silvery hair pulled back in a ponytail as usual. She was pale, and she looked older and sadder than Lark had ever seen her. "Lark—oh, honey, thank God—are you all right?"

"It's okay, Grams." Lark said, "Really, I'm okay—Oh-this is Babs—Barbara Gordon...She's the Commissioner's daughter—." Taking a deep breath, Lark plunged on, daring to say it. "—and my new friend."

Babs' bright smile was all the confirmation Lark needed. It was all right.

* * *

"Two ghosts." Garrote explained, as Healer (her name was also her profession) peeled away the shredded, blood soaked tunic. "Except that the second was only a man dressed as a ghost, and he was armed…" He hissed in pain as the ragged threads came out of the wound. "I didn't notice until too late that he cast a shadow."

"Did he giggle a lot?" Talia asked. She was not pleased at being relegated to guard duty inside the house. While certainly her father needed and deserved the best body guard possible, given his current incapacitation, she would much rather be out on the frontlines.

"Yes." Garrote winced while Healer cut the rest of the garment from him, and handed it to one of the apprentices.

"The Joker." Talia nodded grimly. "But why should that madman pursue us here?"

"The ghost—the true ghost—asked me if I knew who was responsible for the suicides."

Healer was sponging away Garrote's blood, while the apprentice stood at his elbow, anticipating what she would want next. Talia recognized the boy Mud, who had been so clumsy the other night. Today he was proving as adept at helping the assassins' medic as he had been incompetent at serving tea the other evening, deftly choosing specific acupuncture needles from a tray full of nearly identical ones.

"The ghost." Talia seized on that comment. "Tell me about it."

"It was a woman." Healer began performing acupuncture on Garrote, in lieu of other anesthesia, inserting the hair-fine points along the nerves.

"What did she look like?" Talia asked.

"She looked like a ghost. You know, long black hair, a white robe, maybe a bit taller than most women. I couldn't see her entire face, but I didn't want to. She was—I didn't know whether she wanted to bed me or eat me." He shuddered.

"Don't move." Healer told him.

"She spoke to you, you said?" Talia asked.

"Yes. She knew things about me—she knew my mother's name. What I don't know is how a ghost from home got all the way to Gotham City." Garrote looked away as Healer began stitching him up.

"What—you think she was Thai?" To Talia, the ghost had sounded entirely American.

"Of course." the young assassin replied. "She sounded just like a girl from Phra Nakorn," he said, referring to a particular area of Bangkok.

"She was very good with languages." Mud whispered, all too audibly.

All three adults present turned to him. "You know who the ghost is—or was?" Talia asked.

For a moment, he looked like he wanted to shrink away, but then he straightened up, his chest expanding as he took a breath. "It's my cousin, who was named Choeda Gyamtscho by the abbot of Punakha Dzong. It means 'Ocean of Learning'. But her American parents named her Cordelia Diane." He pronounced the Western names carefully but accurately.

"But—what happened to her?" Talia confronted the boy, seizing his shoulders.

"Well—she killed her mother being born, so they knew her karma was unfortunate from the start, even before they drew up her birth chart. Then when they did—she didn't know it, Great Uncle said not to tell, but that was why they let the Witts adopt her."

"I meant, how did she die? Why is she a ghost?" Talia shook him.

He struck her arms away—the cringing was gone from him. "I know! But you can't just hear part of it and not all! I don't know what all's on her chart, but it didn't make much sense, I heard the elders talking about it. It said she'd bring good to whatever man got her, but she would never be happy until after she was dead, and a bunch of other things. I thought it just meant that nobody's happy while they're alive, because life is suffering, but the way they said it, they meant something different…" He took another breath, and went on.

"Anyhow, she was adopted to America, but she came back after her American mother died. She was nice--she was a good person, she showed proper respect to everyone, and she did good things in the world. She volunteered to translate for battered women and children in Gotham who didn't speak English and needed help, and things like that—and she thought education was important. When Lord Ra's was conspiring with that American doctor with sky-colored eyes and came to Gotham City, he brought me along. She saw me—and she thought I was in danger. It was my fault—she ran after me, and, and Qain—She died a bad death." Now the boy was clearly in distress.

"She died a very bad death, and no one held the ceremonies for her. It's been more than forty-nine days—it's been more than a year. It's one thing when people become ghosts as punishment for what they did, but she—I think she became a ghost as punishment for what we did. She's going to kill us all."

Talia looked down at him for a moment. "Come with me." she told him. "My father needs to hear this."

* * *

A/N: Not my best chapter, but hey, it's a chapter!


	80. Shingles?

A/N: Since many of my readers have wondered about how bad shingles can really be, and if Lady Shiva would really have been reduced to tears by a sudden attack of it, this is excerpted from the FDA document, Shingles: An Unwelcome Encore, by Evelyn Zamula :

"...the pain can be so severe that it may be mistaken for pleurisy, kidney stones, gallstones, appendicitis, or even a heart attack, depending on the location of the affected nerve."

I've known two people who had it, my grandmother and a friend of mine, and their descriptions were in line with that.

* * *

Lady Shiva reached the spring and dipped up a handful of blessedly cold water to bathe her face, unable to wait even a moment to see what she looked like. She had as yet resisted the temptation to scratch, to dig her nails into skin and relieve the itch—which was no longer only an itch, but a stinging pain which increased by the second. And it had spread—tearing at the fastenings on her tunic, she explored the hot, bumpy skin which now went down her neck. Splashing more water on the affected areas, she took off her head cloth and soaked it, too, patting her tortured skin with it.

What had the Grudge done to her? Letting the water settle while she sponged her neck, she looked at her rippling reflection. The spring made an imperfect mirror, but it was enough to show her the red, blistering rash that striped her face and neck. Suddenly the pain and itch flared up again, and she groaned, cupping up more water, trying to numb her hypersensitive epidermis.

"The only time I ever made a sound like that was, uh, after eating a chicken salad sandwich that'd been in a hot car all day." said a male voice behind her. "I memorized every tile on the bathroom floor before it was over."

She whirled. It was a man, a man disguised as a ghost, but he had a gun pointed at her.

"Aren't you a—ugh. I was going to say you were a real cutie, but, uh, on second look, you kinda lost me."

"You are the Joker." she stated. "I have heard your voice on the news."

"Got it in one guess. _Very_ good. I'm usually the one who gets asked this, rather than the other way around, but what's, uh, wrong with your _face_?"

"What is wrong?" She dropped her head cloth and reached for her blade. Normally no one would have been able to catch her unawares like this; it was the pain and the itch that distracted her. "Your woman, the 'Grudge'—_she_ did this. And _you_ ask _me_ what is wrong?"

"Did she, now? That's my Gracie—always full of surprises. Now, uh, I'm gonna come a few steps closer so I can get a better look, okay? I won't shoot unless you start waving that blade around." He stepped forward, eyeing her cautiously.

The pain flared again, and she cried out, her knees nearly buckling. The sun shone down on out of a clear blue sky, and the light alone felt like acid on her skin. "I can't bear this—make her take it off!"

The Joker reached her and looked down at her anguish, assessing it. "Looks, uh, to me like the shingles. I don't know how she managed to do this to you, but she _really_ got you good."

"Shingles? Do not mock me. I am not a roof!"

"That's only the, uh, common name for it in English. It's—um— caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox. You had the chicken pox when you were small, right?"

"I do not know. The English names mean nothing to me."

"Well, it's one of those childhood diseases, like the measles, but you probably don't know what that is, either. When, uh, you have chicken pox, you sneeze, you cough, and you break out in a rash with blisters all over your body. For about two weeks, you're as sick as a dog, with the blisters popping and oozing all over the place. Then you get better and you never get it again. The problem is, the virus doesn't die. I know all of this because I once got stuck in a Mexican jail with a guy who had the shingles, and he told me about it."

"Spare my ears your life story. Tell me what this is!" A fresh wave of itching and pain gripped her, and she moaned.

"Okay, okay, I'm getting to it." He shrugged. "The virus doesn't die, it just hides out in the nervous system until one day, nobody knows exactly why, in some people it flares up as shingles."

"How can it be cured?"

"I don't know. The guy I knew who had it, he said it was his third round of shingles. There are topical ointments and stuff you can put on it, but being in a jail in Mexico, he didn't have access to them."

"His third round? Then it goes away?"

"He said it usually lasted about a month—." He fingered his scars. "—but I can't say for sure, because he hanged himself because of the agony about a week into it."

Lady Shiva began to cry, dropping her blade. "Tell her to take the curse off me—I cannot endure this. I will pay her. I have money, I have jewels, gold and fine jade. All of it—I will give her everything I have!"

"Uhmm, there's the problem. You mighta noticed that Grace, or the Grudge as folks seem to be calling her, is kind of solidity challenged. I was just thinking about that myself, because we had a little tiff earlier, and it would be a lot easier to make up if I could only knock over Tiffany's and give her the entire haul. Except she isn't that kind of girl in the first place, so—."

"Then anything, anything she wants, I will do. I care not what it might be, I only want this to stop!" Lady Shiva screwed her hands into fists, because the need to scratch, even if she flayed herself, was growing overpowering.

"I'd be glad to pass that along. The thing is, I know Gracie. She doesn't like to kill or hurt people, although she does now and then. Scaring people, that's her thing—unless they did something really, really awful. According to her, death is too good for some people. She wants to see them pay before they die. So when I see this, I have to wonder why she would want to make you suffer. What did you do?"

"That doesn't—that isn't—I broke my word! I broke my word to my mother and I killed my sister! How she knew that, I cannot tell, but she cursed me for that." The pain and itching was spreading, down underneath her clothing. She wanted to tear off her tunic, for it felt like sandpaper against the blisters.

He whistled in appreciation. "Yeah, that _would_ tick her off. I can think of one thing that would help soften her up, maybe even clear the way to undoing the curse."

"What? Name it!" The deadly assassin who had not cried for years stood before a man she should have despised, prepared to abase herself in any and every possible way, if only it brought her relief.

"You could tell me who is masterminding the suicides down in Gotham City." He cocked his head and smiled at her, a grisly sight.

"I—Qain! It is Qain. You will know him by his size—he is enormous, and dark of hair and eye. He's European—and he has a scar like the letter Q above his left eye. Now please, I beg of you, summon her and make her make this stop!"

"Thank you. When I see her next, I'll be sure to tell her how, uh, very helpful you were. Right now, though—you smell that smoke on the wind? There's a big fire coming this way, and I've got things to do before it gets here. Ta-ta!" The Joker waved airily at her, and dashed off, laughing.

Shiva sank to her knees, rocking back and forth and moaning in agony while she splashed water over her face again.


	81. Weeping Blood

A/N: Since many of my readers have wondered about how bad shingles can really be, and if Lady Shiva would really have been reduced to tears by a sudden attack of it, this is excerpted from the FDA document, Shingles: An Unwelcome Encore, by Evelyn Zamula :

"...the pain can be so severe that it may be mistaken for pleurisy, kidney stones, gallstones, appendicitis, or even a heart attack, depending on the location of the affected nerve."

I've known two people who had it, my grandmother and a friend of mine, and their descriptions were in line with that.

* * *

I had wondered where or if there were other ghosts, and now I knew. Not ghosts like me, intelligent and independent of mind if not of body, but pale shadows, the blood which stained them faded to ashes-of-roses, their eyes gone white with time, but their tortured expressions still screaming without sounds or words.

They were haunted, these killers, these assassins. Not all of them, and not by their everyday, bread-and-butter killings for money, where their prey was only a photograph and a name.

They were haunted by the deaths of those who had meant something to them: a sister slain, a grandfather robbed and left to die, a baby shaken to death, a young neighbor molested and smothered. Those ghosts followed them, hollow-eyed and weeping. Were they true ghosts, or the stir of conscience, guilt which echoed and resonated through the years? I did not know. It did not matter.

I heard them, although they had no voices, and I reached out—.

What was happening to me? I raised my eyes to a yellow-white sun in a cloudless sky, unburned, unblinded, without blinking, and I felt it, that sun, smiling warm upon my face. Liquid coursed down from my eyes and pattered red on the brick dust around my feet, falling through my feet, condensed from the air, more solid than I was.

What was happening to me? What was I becoming? I was rampaging around this corner of the Gotham area like at least five of the ten plagues of Egypt, and I…was…not…in…control. I was a knife, a scalpel, in something's hand.

At least I hadn't killed anyone yet. At any rate, I didn't think I had.

"Jay." I wept, "Jay, where are you? I _need_ you." What humiliation, to be reduced to crying out for what comfort a madman and killer could give me.

"I'm here." He called out from somewhere not too far away. I heard old bricks clatter and grass swish as he appeared, climbing over a collapsed wall, carrying a gun. "What's—are you okay?"

"No." I said, even my voice sounding strange to me. "I don't know. I—."

"You're, uh, crying blood." he pointed out. "Or it's rolling down your face, anyhow."

"I don't think it's mine." I replied.

"You sound funny, too." He looked me up and down. "All in all, I have to say, you're not at your sassiest best, Gracie."

"If you're going to start getting personal, then I have to point out that you look like a fifty year old alcoholic fishwife of questionable morals who staggered home through a meat packing plant before falling asleep in the fireplace." I snapped back. He did, too. His nightgown was stained with soot and blood, his makeup was running, and his wig was on crooked. But his presence was grounding me again. Why him? Why did it have to be him?

"Now _that's_ more like it." he chuckled. "What have you been up to? Because I've been coming across some uh, ver-ry unhappy people who are kinda the worse for wear after running into you."

"Spreading plagues, murrains and poxes." I told him, gloomy about it.

"What the _hell_ is a _murrain_?"

"I'm not one hundred percent sure." I admitted. "but it sounds unpleasant, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. My next question is, how are you doing it?" He squinted and scratched his head under the wig.

"I'm not infecting them with anything new, I know that much. The diseases are already there. All I have to do is wake them up."

"And, uh, _why_ are you doing it?" he asked.

"It's not revenge, or even justice. That's not what they want."

"What 'they' are you talking about here? You're not making a lot of sense here…"

"The other ghosts." I explained. Really, why wasn't he following me?

"Other ghosts. O-kay." He gave me a funny look—but then he didn't really have any other kind, did he?

"Yes. It isn't hatred they feel." I said, the light dawning. "It's more—that they want their killers to—to repent. That's why I didn't sic my shoes on the women—it would be too easy, too quick, too kind."

"Repent?" he asked, his voice colored with skepticism.

"Yes." I smiled at him. "I realize you're unfamiliar with the concept, but it means to feel bad about something you did and to wish you hadn't done it."

"You, uh, seem to be going in and out of focus. I gotta say, sassy girl, that I don't like this de-velopment."

The wind shifted, and I smelled smoke. I said as much to him.

"Yeah. My _non_-expendable lads are doing good wor-k." he drew out the last word, "and I haven't been doing too bad myself. I've got a name for the one behind all this. Qain."

"Cain? How biblical…Is the sun spinning?" I looked up at it again.

"Um—." Jay squinted up at the day's eye. "Not that I can tell—but what I _can_ tell is that, uh, you're not doing too good, Gracie."

"I'm fine," I protested.

"I'm uh-fraid I have to disagree with you there. You're worrying me. Maybe we've done enough here today—yeah, retreat now, and come back, maximize the terror. Nothing like a little anticipation to get'em going."

"No!" I protested. "Let's do this now."

"Why the hell do I have to be the sensible one?" he complained. "It isn't any _fun_. Okay, we'll push on, but I'm keeping an eye on you. I—." He stopped, looking at his hand, which was wet and red. "This is real blood."

"Did somebody cut you, or did you cut somebody?" I asked.

"Neither, in the last ten minutes. This came out of _your_ face." He reached out to try and touch me, and although his hand did pass through me, it was—different.

It tingled.

"Did you feel that?" I asked him.

"Yeahhh—it felt like touching fog. Screw this." he decided. "I can find these yahoos again any time I like. Give them time to stew, and hit them again. We're going home."

* * *

A/N: Another chapter that was difficult to get together. Aack! I got slammed at work this week, but I have the weekend off.


	82. Take It Or Leave It

A/N: Whew. Another difficult stretch at work and internet/computer issues on top if it.

I am considering writing a Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane-centric fic once this is done—I can sort of see the end of Can't Get You Out Of My Head from where I am, but it may be a mirage. It would be another Asian ghost story--, (yeah, yeah, I know, it's a problem I have) but one that's more M.R. James or Henry James than Koji Suzuki (the author of Ringu). The premise at this moment: In his brief days as a professor at Gotham University, Jonathan Crane comes into possession of an antique Japanese chest full of the personal effects of a young lady—and at the very bottom of it is the young lady herself—or at least her skeleton.

* * *

She didn't blink. Bruce was sure of it. His new, temporary cook-housekeeper, a rigid, stick-thin middle aged woman with smoke-grey hair, definitely did not blink and thus far she spoke no known human language, although the employment agency promised all its staff were fluent in English. Maybe she wasn't even human…

"So, uh, your duties will include cooking and some light cleaning. The cleaning service comes in three times a week to do the big stuff. You'd supervise them, organize the laundry and dry cleaning, pick up the mail and any packages from the concierge downstairs, accept deliveries from the grocery store, the florist's—hold on one second." His phone was ringing.

It was the hospital. Rachel had been assaulted by Harvey Dent, who had then escaped.

He nearly got a speeding ticket getting there once again, to find a bruised, tearful Rachel sitting in the emergency waiting area, her face scrubbed until it was half raw and shiny.

"You're all right?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Oh, Bruce…" She began crying again. "He—I never would have believed he could do that—not to me."

A little awkward, he took her in his arms. "It's all right." He told her, patting her shoulder as she lay her head on his. "Come on home. Come home where there are people who care about you, and always have. Alfred needs you—and I need you too."

She drew breath to object, but he cut her off. "Not like how you're thinking. The domestic service agency sent over some kind of Mrs. Danvers Robot-Housekeeper, and she_ scares_ me. I need for you to sort it all out."

She made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. "Darn you, Bruce. You're too good at this."

"I am?" he asked. "I'm glad I've learned something over the years, anyway."

"You have." She assured him. "I only wish I had." Her eyes were looking at something very faraway.

* * *

"What's the count as of right now?" Gordon asked.

Bullock peered at his Blackberry. "Eighty-three, counting the accidents on the freeway, and deaths where somebody jumped out of a window and landed on somebody else. Things like that. Of course, there'll be others showin' up, the ones that haven't been reported yet."

"But less than a hundred." Gordon closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Not a hundred and sixty."

Opening his eyes again. "But the countdown has started again. Thirty-six hours."

"Uh-uh." Bullock shook his head. "It's been more than four hours since 11:45, so we're really looking at—thirty-one hours and forty-some minutes."

"Thank you." Gordon gave him a hard look . "That really wasn't necessary."

* * *

"We didn't really have to stop and leave then." Grace protested. "I'm fine."

We had gotten back out of the compound to find my four new made-men standing around the smoking body of one of the ninjas (or whatever they were), looking a lot more confident than when they got there. Kelvin looked particularly satisfied. I had explained that the fun was over for the day, but we would come back, and after paying them—I had the foresight to bring along some more money from another stash—we had gone our separate ways.

"Yes, you're fine. You're fine _now_. You weren't fine then. Whether it was being separated from me or something about that place and those people, you had me worried there." I looked over at her.

She was back to normal, sitting in the passenger's seat. By back to normal, I mean she wasn't crying blood and not making any sense or wearing white. "And I mean that. You did have me worried. I don't remember being worried before. Ever."

"It's good to have new experiences." she said, her sassiness returning.

"Well, I wasn't _that_ worried." I retorted. "Still—that does leave me with a perfect opening to my next topic for uh, discussion. This whole 'trust' issue. Ummm….Look. I've never said anything like this to anybody before, so I'll probably screw it up, and if you want mushy stuff, you're looking at the wrong guy. But—here goes.

"Yes. You're right about me. I _could_ abuse somebody I was involved with. In fact, depending on who she was—I'm, uh, thinking about this one cute little nurse or intern in Arkham, I don't remember which she was, who got this look in her eyes whenever she laid eyes on me. She was one of my plans for getting out of there, actually. Because her lips would part just a bit, and she'd breathe faster. I—I excited her, and I knew I could sell her a bill of goods any time I wanted. I could play her like a violin. Whatever I fed her, she'd swallow. She was in love with me.

"I would have used her like a wad of toilet paper, if we'd ever gotten together. I think I would have _had_ to beat the crap out of her, now and then, just for being so goddamn stupid for letting me pull the wool over her eyes."

"You're not reassuring me with this, I hope you know." Grace pointed out.

"I know, I know. I want to explain _why _I would never do that to you, even if you were flesh and blood with no special powers."

"Yeah, well, you're looking at a long hike uphill on a bad road before you convince me of that." She told me cynically. "Without water, and while carrying a sixty pound sack of rocks on your back."

"Hear me out first, okay? I've never told you about how I found Sol. This does connect up, but we have to take the scenic route. You see, not long after Fear Night I was looking for some clothes that fit what I, uh, envisioned as my style. You don't exactly find suits like mine on the rack at the Men's Wearhouse, you know? I came across this old, uh, tux, from back in the fifties, an old orchestra conductor's work suit with those long tails, that was just about exactly what I was looking for. They're made so that you can really move your arms."

I was still driving, and I turned right before I continued. "When black clothes get old, they sometimes change color, and this tux had gone kind of purplish-green. I liked it, so I had a good look at the inside, looking for where I would stash my, umm, toys. You know what I saw?"

"Other than Sol's label, I can't guess." Grace replied.

"It was really well made, that was what I saw. Even for a conductor's suit, it was quality. You could barely see the stitches, the lining was nice material, and even though it was older than me—older than my mom, even—it was in near-perfect condition. I don't—I can't do anything that good. I don't make things—things that don't blow up, that is. There are things I'm good at, don't get me wrong. Killing, mayhem—" I smacked my lips, "terror, intimidation, messing with people's heads—I'm world class. I even grill a hell of a steak.

"But that's not the same thing. So I looked up the name on the label in the phone book, and what do you know? The shop was still there. I figured, what the hell, maybe there's a chance he's still in business. So I took the old tux along, knocked on their door, and this little old guy comes to the door. It was Sol. There aren't a lot of people I like…but I liked him."

I was silent a moment, remembering the first time I had ever climbed those stairs, how they'd creaked under my weight, and I explained that to Gracie. "At one point I was sure they were going to pull off the side of the building and come apart—but even then, I'd known such a thing couldn't, wouldn't happen to me. I was safe from any ordinary death, now that I knew my future. The Joker was Immortal, and I _was_ the Joker. I got to the top of the stairs and knocked.

"The door opened, and there was Sol, blinking in the light, an ordinary old man in his shirtsleeves—it was a warm day—with spectacles on his nose and suspenders on his shoulders. "I'm sorry—I thought you were the delivery boy with the groceries." he'd said. "Are you lost?"

"Not if you're the man who made this." I extended the bag with the tuxedo in it.

He took the jacket out of the bag, turning it inside out. "Yes. I made this for Harry Rosenthal, conductor of the Gotham Philharmonic Orchestra, in 1956. He died in 1979. A good conductor, but he emphasized the brass a bit too much for my tastes."

"He remembered exactly who he made it for, even after all that time? Did he embroider the name in it somewhere?" my sassy girl asked.

"No. He didn't. He just knew. It was his work—it was almost like it was one of his kids. Nobody would mistake one of their kids for another, not while they had, uh, all their marbles. Anyhow, he invited me in. I explained what I wanted, and he nodded and started measuring me, asking questions about things I didn't even know were important, like gussets and which side I dressed on." I snickered at that.

"Which side you dress on?" Gracie didn't disappoint me.

"Uh-huh—like whether I tuck my anaconda to the left or the right."

She laughed. "Hentai!"

"Now, to try and get this back to the point I was trying to make." I turned the car on to 92nd St. "Sol doesn't have to do as good a job as he does when he, uh, makes a suit. But he couldn't not do that good a job, it's part of who he is. He has something I don't, and I don't know what name to give it. I…admire him for that. I respect him. I would never go beating the crap out of him or Bernice, because you—I—people can't abuse people they respect.

"That's my point. I respect you. You can read my mind, so you know I'm not lying. Whatever it is that Sol has, you have it too. Because I respect you, I would never abuse you physically. The whole business about hurting you when I do things that are wrong, that I can't do anything about. That's all I have to say. Take it or leave it." We were parked around the corner from our apartment, ready to get out and go on upstairs to what was, I guess, now home. A strange thought, but one that didn't suck. It was even kind of nice.

She was quiet a long moment. "I'll take it, if only for one reason." she said, finally.

"What's the reason, sassy girl?"

"Because you know I'm more dangerous dead than alive. If I'm ever alive, you'll want to keep me that way."


	83. The Veil

Lady Shiva sprinkled herbs into the bath as it filled, her hand shaking only slightly. The shingles had spread to cover nearly a third of her body now, which should not have been possible, according to the website she had consulted. The outbreak should have been confined to one nerve complex. Moreover, the symptoms had progressed too fast, days of development occurring in mere minutes.

The Grudge's curse was potent.

A fresh spasm of pain wracked her, and her vision went white for several seconds. _Please_, she pleaded, although she did not know to whom. _Not my eyes. Do not take my eyes_. When shingles attacked the eye, permanent damage to the vision was not uncommon. But her sight returned, and she nearly wept for gladness.

She had been trained to ignore and overcome pain, but not pain like this. Who knew how to fight the supernatural? And she was not even the worst off of the five assassins who had been singled out by the ghost. That honor fell to Paol, who now lay dead of syphilis—a latent infection he had not even known he had. Within hours, the disease had progressed from its primary stages through every hideous and debilitating phase, until at last neurosyphilis had consumed his brain. Healer's penicillin had not even slowed it. He had died insane and screaming, pleading for his grandfather's forgiveness.

The pain spread down through her body, and the thin cotton robe she wore abruptly felt as heavy and coarse as filthy goat hide. She shed it, trying not to look at the blisters which broke and wept clear serum. How quickly she had gone from the elegant, self-controlled and honed weapon to this pathetic, broken creature who had pleaded for mercy from the Joker.

The bath was full. Taking a dish from the sink, she sprinkled in the ingredient Healer had told her to add last: sesame. The kitchen had both black and white sesame seeds, and since the woman had not specified, she had taken a handful of each. The seeds floated on the surface of the water like miniscule ducks on a lake, and the greatest assassin alive slipped in.

The water was soothing. She lay back, immersing herself to the ears. The peculiar conductivity of plumbing made it possible to hear very clearly what Ra's was up to on the floor above, a fact Shiva had turned to her advantage more than once. An argument was shaping up between the leader and his daughter. Ordinarily she would have listened with a great deal more interest, not to mention gloating, but today it was simply noise that was going on while the pain faded away.

* * *

So, what did we do when we got home? Just powered down, that's all. I made myself another steak, this time with a potato and some green beans while Gracie made more comments about my health and blood pressure. I replied that if anybody ought to be concerned about their blood pressure it was certain people who bled from their eyes when they were agitated, and she stuck her tongue out at me. The Shoes didn't need feeding again so soon, and they went back to being bunny slippers while she changed her ever-mutable outfit into another pair of funny flannel pajamas (pink with polka dots and pictures of tropical drinks. _How _did she think these things up?)

After that, since the Riveras had set up the entertainment center, we watched The Host, which was the only one of the J-horror movies we hadn't seen the other night. It was good, not just because of the Molotov cocktails and the arrows, but the monster moved like a real animal, with the way the muscles flowed and how it seemed to have real weight to it. The ending made her cry (not blood, which was good), and I teased her until I got smacked. I felt the smack, too—although it wasn't so much a smack as a cold draft. After that, even though it was still early, we fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was to a sense of total disorientation. Where the hell was I? Dead? Alive but having an out-of-body experience? I could see my body lying there some feet below me, next to the expected swath of black hair, staring wildly up at myself—Oh. Okay. This was the private passion pit apartment and the hentai who fixed it up had put a huge mirror over the bed. I hadn't noticed it before, that was all.

Stretching out all four limbs, I yawned—and froze. My foot had touched something that was more than bedclothes.

I jerked back. My immediate thought was that The Shoes were playing games again—but no. I could see them in the overhead mirror, sitting neatly on the floor on Grace's side of the bed. I stretched my leg out again in that direction, and once again, my foot came into contact with something solid which was also warm and, well, foot-like. I slid my foot up and down it, and damned if it didn't seem to have toes, an instep, and an ankle. Beside me, Gracie stirred and made a noise like a girl who's been half-roused by someone playing footsie with her under the covers.

Rolling over to face her, I told myself (and my unconscious reflexes) not to get my hopes (or anything else) up too much. My reflexes weren't listening, but the big head has to stay in control of the little head or nothing gets done, right? She lay facing me. Her head wasn't a featureless knob this morning; her hair was disarranged enough so I could see most of an ear, the hollow of her throat...

Sooner or later, I had to try it. I reached out to touch the ends of her hair, and instead of the satin bedcover, I felt hair the texture of raw silk. Sliding my hand up to the pillow, I felt more hair, until I was almost touching her face. The pillow cover was warm, just like it should be.

Why was my hand shaking so goddamn much? It wasn't as if I didn't know what she looked like, I'd seen that video clip on the Internet—but those were only pictures, and taken during her life, too.

But this was different. Not just seeing, but touching. It was like—I'd never been to a wedding, not even the quickie courthouse kind, let alone a big fancy one in a church with a priest or a minister, but I'd picked up an idea of what happened from the movies and TV. The couple said their vows, and then the minister said they were married, and the groom could now kiss the bride. That was when he lifted her veil and kissed her—or something like that, anyway. I wasn't clear on the details.

Well, Gracie was wrapped in a sheet as white as snow, and her hair was a black silk veil, and this was, God knew, the closest I had ever been or would ever be to getting married.

Very carefully, I gathered up her hair and uncovered her face.

She was exquisite.

Okay, I know not everybody would have said that, but these things are a matter of personal opinion. If my idea of exquisite involves a delicate hint of corpse green in a girl's complexion and that she should look as though she'd been beaten half to death—she had two black eyes with a whole sunset of colors, split and swollen lips, a cut on her forehead, and bruises and abrasions all down one side of her face. But on her it looked _good_. Half fragile waif, half dangerous wraith. How much money do women waste on makeup to make themselves look oh-so-beautifully 'goth' or 'vamp'? Gracie's beauty wouldn't wash away.

…but it could change. Even as I watched, the bruises lightened and faded, as if she were healing, then turned dark indigo blue, as if this were being done with time-lapse photography, see-sawing back and forth. A moment later, her skin went pure white, blistered up and peeled away in strips. I couldn't say I found that very attractive, but I knew what I was seeing and it was fascinating. I was watching what had happened when she died. Then the time-lapse went backward further still, until I was looking at her before she'd been hurt at all, and she was _still_ exquisite.

I couldn't wait any longer. I leaned in and kissed her.

* * *

A/N: Short, I know, but you can't say this isn't an important moment! My internet problems are half-fixed. At least I could post this from home this time...


	84. Brush Your Teeth

A/N: A very short one, but as I fear I will be taken out and lynched if I don't update immediatly, I thought I'd better do it. FYI: I will _never_ get more explicit than I have already done. Naughty, yes, explicit, no.

Also, I've added a poll to my profile concerning my potential future Scarecrow fic. Kind of a sneak preview. Check it out!

* * *

I woke up not knowing what the hell was going on. Someone's lips were on mine, I was looking right into a pair of warm brown eyes and someone's hand was in my hair. Was I dreaming now or were the last several days the dream?

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." Jay said, answering a lot of questions while posing just as many more. He'd just woken up too, as his hair was all rumpled and he wasn't wearing his face paint yet.

"What?" I gasped, sitting up on my elbows—and uh-oh, I was stark naked. And I had elbows and Jay had kissed me awake…I grabbed at the sheet, drawing it up tight under my armpits. "I mean, did you just kiss me?"

"Geez, you're really not a morning person. Yes, I did. Congratulations: you are now a _real_ girl."

"I am?" I touched my face, my hair. "What do I look like?" Pulling the sheet off the bed, I leapt for the bathroom.

"Hey, wait up!" he called after me.

I'd been hoping that the sight of my own face would bring on a flood of memories, but nothing like that happened. I pushed my hair out of the way. The girl in the mirror, whoever she was, had a pleasant enough face, with a high, wide forehead and high cheekbones—both positives—but a wide flat nose which I immediately did not care for. Her mouth was well-shaped and generous, another plus, but her chin was on the square and prominent side, a minus. Skin: decent, no enlarged pores, kind of a honey beige. Teeth—not perfect, but okay. Her eyes were largish, dark, and, I thought, intelligent. All in all, more in the plus column than the minus. She looked as though she were in her mid-twenties.

By that time, Jay had caught up with me, having wrapped himself in the fur throw off the bed. "So-uh—what do you think of her?" he nodded toward my reflection.

"I think she looks a little too smart and a little too stubborn for her own good," I replied, and then asked, suddenly and ridiculously insecure, "—but what do you think?"

He took my chin in his hand and turned my face from side to side, studying my features. He was gentle, almost tender while he did it, too. "MMmmm….Not bad." He finally passed judgment. There was a lot he was not saying; the mental link between us was still there, and what he was thinking told me it was all right.

So it was no surprise to me when the hand holding my chin went to caressing my cheek, and he leaned in for a kiss.

I flinched and put a hand in between our mouths. I think anybody would have, under the circumstances. As he drew and angry breath, a hurt look crossing his face, I spoke before he could. "You're going to have to brush your teeth first if you want to go for tongue."

That derailed him. "What?"

"It's your _breath_, idiot. You've got morning breath. What, did you really think I was rejecting you?"

"I—." He grabbed the dental implements and started setting a land-speed record for the fastest brushing ever.

"While you do that," I told him, "I'm going back to bed. What you do then is up to you."

I'd known, ever since the morning I woke up and found I could smell him, that if I was ever solid enough we would consummate this odd union of ours. Now I was solid. I knew, without any specific memory to inform me, that I was not a virgin, but I also knew I wasn't promiscuous. Going to bed with him after only a week's acquaintance would be a record for me, but I knew him better than I had ever known anyone. Nothing about this relationship was normal or usual; it was already much more intimate than sex, and that was the deciding factor. I felt married to him, as if I had always been married to him.

And what with everything, I would certainly never be married to anyone else.


	85. Who Knew?

A/N: I have added a poll to my profile about my future Scarecrow fic, with two possible approaches—a sort of sneak preview. And yes, this is another short one. But it was fast, wasn't it?

* * *

"--and so your cousin became a Jou-gyal pritay." Ra's sounded bored. He had located Grace/Cordelia Witt's blog and looked over it while the apprentice told his story. "Was she a virgin?"

"How would I know?" Mud asked. "I'm half her age and a boy. She wasn't going to go telling me those kinds of things. She was never married—the grannies were looking around for suitable men for her to meet, next time she came."

"And I'm quite certain an American girl with a Master's degree was thrilled at the prospect of marrying a Bhutanese yak herder." the elder man quipped.

"No." Mud retorted. The Demon's daughter, Lady Talia, had given him her word that he could speak without fear of reprisal, and the anger bottled up since Fear Night was now boiling over. "But she might have liked to marry a doctor at the hospital in Tongsa or the assistant director of the Energy Commission. You don't rule the _whole_ country. We have satellite TV and Internet access and cellphones and running water these days."

Ra's reared up in his chair as though he were going to strike the youth. "Father!" Talia interposed herself between them. "Half your people here have seen this ghost and attested to her powers. Five of your people have been cursed with diseases by her here today. The Western world makes movies about phantoms of her sort, that's how well known they are. I'm sure the God of the Dead doesn't go checking for intact virginity before letting a girl return as a ghost!"

"Smoke and mirrors, Daughter. It's done with smoke and mirrors. I should know. There is no such thing as the supernatural."

"I beg your pardon, oh Lord of a Thousand Years," They turned to see Healer in the doorway. "but if there is not, then you have ruled us with lies for centuries. That is not why I am here, however. Paol has just died. Your daughter is correct; five of your people have come down with common diseases which have progressed from the first symptoms to their most virulent forms in a way which, if it is not supernatural, indicates the existence of a biochemical weapon of unimaginable power.

"Whether she is a ghost or whether she is alive, I cannot say, but she could have incapacitated any or all of your assassins as she did Lady Shiva, Sai, Archer and Mordius. She is in league with the Joker, which means she is protected. Yet something, my lord, must be done."

"A biochemical weapon." Ra's considered it. "That I can believe. You say her body lies in the bowels of Arkham, Mud?"

"Yes." the youth replied.

"I doubt that. Our next step will be to go back to Arkham, where we will not find the body—but where, I trust, we will find Dr. Crane, who I do not doubt is up to his neck in this. What better way to rouse fear than to place a pestilential weapon in the hands of a madwoman?" Ra's stood up, using his cane for assistance, although Talia sprang to his side.

"You don't know that she's mad." Mud defended his cousin.

"If she is willingly consorting with the Joker, there can be no question of that."

* * *

We made love.

I'm not going to go into explicit detail about it, for several reasons. First of all, what does it always come down to, other than putting Tab A in Slot B, with accompanying sound effects like 'mmph, mmph, oh, yes, that's it!'? And then if you believe romance novels, AKA, Porn for Women, the guy's always got proportions that outdo a porn star's (I'm not saying I _don't_, mind you) while she has no trouble 'peaking' over and over again without so much as a manual assist (and I'm not saying Gracie did) resulting in simultaneous radiant ecstasy for both. (Again, no comment). I think the entire human race decided a long, long time ago that sex is fun, without my having to go into detail. We almost certainly didn't come up with anything new. Not the first time, anyway.

Plus, if I _did_ go into detail, I'd just have to do it again every time we did it, only we'd have to do different stuff the next time, and the time after that, and then maybe we'd have to do it with different people or use toys and the next thing you know, there'd be bowling pins and live poultry involved, and, trust me, you really don't want to go there.

Besides, all anybody needs to know about it is right there in the first line. _We made love_.

We didn't have sex, screw, get it on, do the horizontal tango or even the ever-popular fuck. We made love.

The biggest surprise, for me, was finding out there is a difference.

Afterward, she was a little self-conscious. "So—am I ...different?"

"From what, sassy girl?"

"From a girl who's alive in the usual way, idiot."

There were a lot of ways I could have answered that. Like, "Yes. For one thing, you smell nice and fresh, not like drugstore perfume over a lifetime of cheap booze and fast food, and for another, you kiss me like my mouth was your favorite flavor of ice cream and not an overcooked Brussels sprout, and you don't make a lot of fake noise and weird faces. In fact, you're pretty quiet, except that you get this intent look which couldn't be anything but real."

But the nice thing about being in—about _being with_ a girl who could read my mind was that I didn't have to say any of those stupid humiliating things, I could just say, "Well, you don't smell, feel, look, sound, or act dead. At all. In any way. Now what I want to know is, does this count as necrophilia or not? Because it seems like an interesting perversion to add to my list of crimes against humanity—."

About then she started smacking me, sharp stinging little smacks, and I had to grab her hands to defend myself and then we started kissing again, which brings me back to the fact that I'm not going to go into detail. And that's all.


	86. Not Necessarily

A/N: Well, sixty dollars and a new router later, it seems as though my computer/Internet connectivity problems MIGHT really be solved, knock on wood. The song Scarecrow is singing does not belong to me; it's the Halloween Song from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

* * *

In the unused, fetid depths of Arkham Asylum, someone was humming. It was enough to make Talia, in the forefront, pause before she opened the door to the subcellar where, according to Mud, his cousin's body could be found.

It was a sprightly tune, cheerful to the point of manic, and the hummer was male. After a few more bars, he broke into song. " 'This is Halloween, everybody make a scene. Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright...' You may as well come in. I've had cameras watching your every move all the way down the hall." She recognized the voice, which belonged to Jonathan Crane.

Turning to her father, who was doing his best not to show how the effort to walk normally hurt him, she waited for his nod of confirmation before she reached out to open it.

A wave of air smelling strongly of decay rolled out to assail her nose. "See? I told you." Mud said from the middle of their group.

She hissed 'Shhht!." at the boy, looking in cautiously. The room was large, and only about a third full of scaffolding, crates, and pipes. A figure sat on one of the crates, idly swinging a leg. It—no, he—wore the remains of an ancient, disintegrating straitjacket and a crude burlap mask. The half-light shone glassily on the blue eyes that showed through the holes in the mask.

"Hello," said the Scarecrow. "I am not, as I well know, the most physically imposing opponent in the world, but I've found ways of compensating for that. Before anyone gets any ideas about rushing me, do you see this little box I have in my hand?" He held up an object about the size and shape of a deck of cards. "It's a dead hand switch. If I let go of it—and I might, just on a whim—then this room and most of this level will be flooded with a new and improved version of my fear gas, to which I have built up an immunity.

"I notice you are not wearing filtration masks—very shortsighted and foolish of you, by the way—but even if you were, it wouldn't matter. I've come a long way since last year, and the new formula doesn't need to be inhaled to work. It can be absorbed right through the skin. All of you will pick up an incapacitating, and possibly fatal dose."

Ra's limped forward to peer at the deranged doctor. "Crane, have you been self-medicating?"

"No. And it's Scarecrow—at least at the moment."

"Perhaps you should start." the older man suggested.

"Do you have any phobias?" Scarecrow inquired.

"I?" Ra's raised his eyebrows. "No."

The hand which was not holding the switch dipped inside the straitjacket and came out with a small dart gun. "Would you like some? This gun has six darts. At the moment I have it loaded with agoraphobia, vertigo, arachnophobia, xenophobia, neophobia, and merinthophobia—or the fear of crowds, heights, spiders, foreigners, anything new, and of being bound or tied up. Believe me, you don't want to know how I made these—but I'll give you a hint. I looked at planaria worm research and went a step or two further."

"No, thank you." The leader of the League of Shadows demurred politely. "I would say I was surprised to find you here—except that I am not. I expected you would be here."

"As I asked Batman the other day, why would I be anywhere else? I'm afraid I can't return the favor, for I was expecting someone else—either the Grudge or the Joker, perhaps both."

"Then Cordelia Witt is alive." Ra's said triumphantly.

"Before I answer that" the Scarecrow digressed, "I want to say something. I've been sitting here thinking about—good and evil. No one wants to be the bad guy. I never said, 'Oh, my life's ambition is to get involved with an eight hundred year old terrorist and his organization, develop drugs which I test on non consenting mental patients and certifying mob hitmen as insane before catching a dose of my own medicine and becoming a drug manufacturer before winding up in my own asylum.

"I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the Jonas Salk of mental illness and come up with an inoculation against things like depression and schizophrenia. Under other circumstances, I could even see being someone like Batman—Scarecrow, scourge of Gotham's underworld, frightening criminals back onto the straight and narrow! What could I have done differently, I've been asking myself. Well—." Standing up for the first time, he shoved the crate aside with his foot to reveal a sump pump cover.

"--this is certainly one thing I could have done differently." Putting the phobia gun away, he pried up the lid, increasing the stench of death in the room tenfold. "I could have prevented this."

Talia gagged at the sight and the smell of the rotted thing down in the hole, while her father looked at it with a detached, cool interest.

"I have seen dead bodies before." he informed the costumed man. "What is it you are implying? That she is is roaming around Gotham with the Joker at the same time that she is lying dead here? I had thought you were a man of science."

"I am." the Scarecrow replied, coolly. "and something...highly unusual is going on. That's only her physical body down there in that pump. She's still alive—she's simply alive in a different way."

"She's going to kill us." predicted Mud.

"I'm not so sure of that." the stick figure in the rags disagreed. "She isn't a vampire or a zombie. She's something else. Something new. A phobophage—an eater of fear. Killing you would mean reducing her food supply."

"I think you are both wrong." Talia objected. "I thought she was a vengeful spirit, but that was before the events of today. I spoke with those of our people she afflicted—those in a condition to speak, that is—and those whom she merely haunted. She punished those who had transgressed against the ties of family and friendship."

Her father still looked down at the remains in the sump pump tank. "You are certain this is the body of that woman?" He asked.

"Yes." Mud and the Scarecrow answered at the same time.

"If she were alive, would she have powers?" Ra's asked.

"I don't know." Scarecrow answered, while the boy replied, "No."

"And if she were alive, she would have no quarrel with us." The ancient leader of the League stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Or if she did, she would be in our power... Haul that thing up out of there—and by thing, I mean the barrel lining. Don't touch the corpse itself."

"Why?" Talia asked. "Dead is dead."

"Not necessarily." He had already turned away. "Am I not alive, thanks to the secrets of the pit? We shall put _that _in the Lazarus Pit, and see what can be done with it. Since she is dangerous dead, it makes sense to bring her back to life."


	87. Hiya, Brucie!

Three days later, 11:47 AM. The second thirty-six hour period had passed, and no further suicides had been reported. Gotham City let out its breath and rejoiced. Why had the suicides ceased? No one knew, any more than they knew why they had begun in the first place.

High atop Wayne Tower, Bruce reached out and took Rachel's hand, squeezing it gently as she sighed in relief. Behind them, Alfred was watching them as much as he was watching the television. He was not yet ready to hope that they might come to an understanding—but he was glad to know that Rachel was returning from the dark despair she had been in when she returned from the hospital.

The Mrs. Danvers clone (whose name was actually Mrs. Rielan) had taken the morning off to watch her grandchildren. Under the circumstances, Bruce could not refuse; the last thing anyone wanted was to find out a suicide had occurred for lack of someone there to stop it.

The doorbell down at the private entrance rang. "I'll get that, sir." Alfred said, getting to his feet. "It is my left hand that's injured, after all, not my right or my feet."

"--are you sure?" Bruce asked. He was now fussing over Alfred as if the elderly man were a delicate piece of blown glass, a complete reversal of their usual roles.

"I'm already here, sir." Alfred twinkled. He picked up the phone. "Hello? Could you turn and face the camera, please? I—Yes. Yes, I understand. Sir. Come here. Come quickly."

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked as Alfred thrust the phone receiver into his hands and pointed to the screen.

A stranger stood there, a young man in a nondescript grey suit. He was brandishing a piece of white cloth in one hand, waving it around conspicuously. In the other hand he had a shopping bag. "Hey, uh, there, B—rucie. Or is there something else I should call you when you're in your civvies?"

It was the Joker. He had concealed the scars and come there in broad daylight. Even for him, that was brazen.

"I don't know what you mean and I'm calling the police." Bruce said, but he didn't hang up.

"Suit your, uh, self." the Joker said. "I've come to talk. Whether it's to you or to Gracie or to the police, I don't care—well, actually I do, which is why I'm here, but talking to the police would be a poor third option. On the other hand, I would have soooo much to tell them, if you, uh, know what I mean. And I think you do."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked. Rachel had come up behind him. Seeing and hearing who was there, she seized Bruce's shoulder, her nails digging through his shirt painfully.

"You see, you have a choice. You can let me in, or you can call the police. I'm gambling that you won't want to hang it up just for the sake of incarcerating little old me again. Uh. Do I have to spell it out for you? Okay. **B**ee.** A**aa. **T**eee—."

"That's enough!" Batman barked. "What do you want?" _He knows. What am I going to do?_

"Just like I said. I want to talk. And I want to do it up therrrre, where there's some privacy. I give you my word I won't start any trouble, and I mean the spirit of that as well as the words. Par-lay. Truce. You get it? Besides, I have something here to return to her." He raised the shopping bag.

Bruce looked at Rachel and mouthed, '_What is he talking about?_'

She shrugged, and spread her hands, indicating that she didn't know.

It was a difficult decision, but Bruce rationalized it, thinking, _Once he's up here, I can subdue him, and then_...Then what? He didn't know at the moment, but he would figure something out. He sent the elevator down "Alfred, go to the safe room." he commanded. "Rachel, you go with him."

"Not on your life." Rachel said. "I owe him a couple."

"I'm more afraid it'll be on your life. Please, Ray."

She would not be budged, however, and he—found he could not make her go.

It was a private elevator, and a fast one, but it seemed an eternity measured in breaths and heartbeats.

"Hi, Batsy. Hi, Beautiful." the Joker greeted them as he stepped off the elevator. "This place looks a lot different during the day.

"Now—as to why I'm here. I'm guessing she, uh, woke up this morning to find out her powers were all gone, and instead of giving me a chance to keep my word, she did like she said she would and skedaddled here to you. I will admit that I'm disappointed. And hurt. I would have thought that after—well, that's private. I just wanted to say that to her in person. I come in peace. I'm not going to lose my temper, I just want a moment of, uh, face time. Plus she has to take these."

He held out the bag, letting it hang open. Inside were the hot pink shoes she had worn in every picture or video clip of her. Rachel made a small _ooooooo_ing sound "There's no way these are staying anywhere near me without her around. I don't trust them."

Bruce looked at the shoes, then at the Joker, and then at the shoes again. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about Gracie, of course. What, did that silver spoon you were born with get lodged in your brain?"

"You think she's here?" Bruce asked, carefully.

"That is what I, think, yes." The Joker looked at him expectantly. "As I said, her plan, should she lose her powers, was to come here and throw herself under your protection. So wheel her on out, okay?"

"But she's not." Rachel said.

"I know, uh, we haven't always been on the best of terms." the Joker said, "but see, here I am, and I'm on my best behavior. I gave my word, and I want to talk to Gracie. Go tell her I'm here—tell her I'll get her every pair of funny flannel pajamas in Gotham City in exchange for five minutes—and you two don't even have to leave the room while we have our chat. How's that for fair?"

"Joker—she's not here." Bruce told him. "I give you _my_ word that she isn't."

But the clown insisted on going through the penthouse, every room of it, before he gave up. "I didn't think she'd leave the Shoes behind." he thought out loud. "So—if she's not here, and come to think of it, I don't know what she would have found to wear to get here. None of my clothes were gone, and she couldn't have gone naked—since she's not here, and she's not at the passion pit—then maybe she didn't leave voluntarily." His eyes suddenly focused on Bruce. "I've got a proposition to put to you, Batsy. One hand washing the other, what do you say...."

TBC...

* * *

A/N: Well, I had to do something, the block on this was killing me! Now Gracie is missing and the Shoes don't have their mommy... Anyhow, in the break I took from this one, I started my Scarecrow fic, if you didn't already know. It's called The Secrets of Scary People and it features Jonathan Crane back in his University Professor days, a chest which may have a very threatening monster in it, and haiku. Yes, I said haiku.

Oh, and if you haven't already, you should check out Nerd by Night Monkey, which is under Batman in the comics section. It's about what happens when the Joker and Harley move into Scarecrow's hideout and the groceries run out. Lots and lots of fun.


	88. Ye Gods and Little Fishies

noNOno/agony/agony/HURTS/heavy/cold/where/helpmehelpmeHELPMEPLEASE/JAY!!!!!

"It--she--it's dead. Again. Sir." The technician looked up from the Lazarus Pit's platform to the supremely calm man who sat resting his hands and his chin on his cane.

Ra's Al Ghul did not turn a hair. "Then bring her back again. The Pit awaits."

"But it only lived fifteen seconds--and that was after two days of immersion." The technician was appalled. What had come out of the pit had been much worse than what had gone into it.

"Yet it was alive." Al Ghul raised an eyebrow. "If it can be made to live, then it can be made to live again. The rest is merely details. Put her back in the pit--and understand I am not asking you. I am _telling_ you."

"Yes, sir." The technician swung the cage back over the Pit and lowered it.

Al Ghul beckoned to the immense man who lurked in the shadows behind him. "Now, Qain. Let us talk..."

* * *

I grinned so hard my face hurt. Granted, I don't have to grin that wide to make that happen, considering the scars, but my face would have hurt anyway, because this was the best thing I had thought of in hours. "If you help me get Gracie back, safe and sound, or at least in, uh, no worse condition than she was when I met her, I'll go back to Arkham with you."

"What?" Batsy looked so cute when he was confused that I just wanted to pinch his cheek. "Where's the catch?"

"No catch. I'll turn myself in peacefully, and I won't let on that I know who you are."

"Why?" asked Beautiful, coming up behind him. Hmmm, they were looking awfully cozy, weren't they?

"Beee-cauyse." I drew out the word. "I've figured out what's going on. Let's suppose--let's suppose you were to kill me, right here, right now."

"Don't tempt me." Bats growled.

"C'mon, play along with me here, okay? For the sake, uh, of argument." I saw a dish of candies sitting on a table, those sugar coated almonds, and I snagged a handful, tossing them up and catching them in my mouth.

"If I were to kill you right now, I'd get a medal and you'd get a hole in the ground."

"OOoh, when you sneer like that, it's just so sexy... Wrong, though." I grinned again. "They'd take me away in a body bag, but when they got me to the morgue, something would happen. No matter how dead you thought I was, no matter how much blood leaked out, no matter if I was stiff and cold, the next thing you'd hear is the commissh calling you on the phone saying, 'Oh, no! There are three morgue attendants dead and the Joker's body is missing! Somebody stole it--or you don't suppose...' And you'd, uh, you'd say, 'No, he's dead. I'm sure of it.' Then you'd hang up, but you'd wonder--could I be alive? There wasn't any heartbeat. He wasn't breathing. Every bone in his body was broken. Naw, he couldn't be alive! A few weeks later, up I'd pop! Just like a Jack-in-the-Box!" I had to take time out to laugh until I was nearly sick.

"You're insane." That was Beautiful. She looked mad enough to rip my balls off and use them for earrings, which made me giggle again.

"Uh-uh. _I'm not_. I'm just the only one in on the joke. If you knew--if you really understood--well, do you ever wonder what happened to the gods?"

"What?" That was from Batsy.

"I'm not talking about Jesus here, or Jehovah, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any of the, uh, other guys who want people to play nice with each other and be better people, I'm talking about the ones who act like people want to act but can't. Zeus and Apollo and Seth and Loki and Spider and Coyote, you know? The ones who screw and fight and smite and get pissed off and turn people into things like trees? Those gods."

"What do you mean, what happened to them? Their times came and went. People stopped believing in them because they weren't real and they didn't offer spiritual growth. They were--just explanations for natural phenomena. I don't know. What are you getting at?"

"Uh-uh. That's--uh, where you're wrong. These things don't stop happening. They change their names, they put on new faces, new clothes--and they come back again. _We're gods_. You and me and Harvey Two-Face--Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul and all the others that are gearing up--we're gods. Gods can die--but they come back again. That's what's going on here. Fear Night, that was it, that was what changed everything. Before that, you were just playing. Since then--I'll give you a for instance. Remember that night on the Prewitt Building?" That was the night I had those ferries rigged up, and my guys dressed as the hostages and the hostages in clown outfits. The night he caught me.

"Of course."

I got up and turned around inside the penthouse room. "Nice digs, like a castle in the sky. Might as well call it 'Olympus'. Remember how you got the SWAT team out? You roped them all together and they went flying out the window, but they didn't fall. They just dangled off your little rope...didn't you think it was strange how _none_ of them, not even _one_, smacked into a beam and broke their necks? How'd ya space them so perfectly, without even measuring or trying? How did you know your rope wouldn't snap? Even if it was rated to hold so much weight, the longer a rope is, the more likely it is to break. It's physics. But you didn't stop to consider that. You kicked, and they went whizz-whizz-whizz-Oh, crap we're gonna die--Oh. It's okay. _How did you do it_?"

"I don't know. It was a chance I had to take."

"And there you go, being all heroic again. Your chin sticks out and your chest puffs up--It went just perfect for you, though. Just like magic. Because you're the hero. You're a god. I'm a god. I'm just the god of stuff like--."

"You are not God." Beautiful was looking more and more pissed. "No matter what you might think."

"I never said I was _the_ God. I'm just _a_ god. Small 'g', not big 'G.' Batsy, here, he's the god of fighting crime with hand and fist and really cool gadgets, and I'm the god of irony and banana peels over open manhole covers and the rictus grin. Look, how do you think you and Harvey survived? How is he, by the way?"

"I--You leave him out of this!"

"You survived because I thought you were hot, like all those chicks who Zeus used to chase around, and Harvey survived because he's a god."

"Then is your 'Gracie' a goddess?" Batsy asked, trying to be all sarcastic, but really, when it comes to sarcasm, he isn't in my league.

I licked my lips and leered at him salaciously. "You better believe it... Just kidding--Maybe, maybe, she is--I mean, we're talking pantheons here, so there, uh, ought to be room for a goddess of scary hair and carnivorous pink shoes. Anyhow, like I said, we're going to go on doing this forever, you and me, so a quick stay back in Arkham--." I made a phffff noise. "is nothing. So--are you in or out? You help me get her back, and I go to Arkham. Deal?"

I could see the gears turning as he thought. He didn't believe me. I wasn't expecting him to believe me. I _was_ counting on his believing _I_ believed what I was saying, because then he would go along with me, which was the important part.

"Do you give me your word that you will?" Batsy asked, stick firmly up his ass as usual.

"Yes, I give you my word. If you help me get Gracie back, I will then go back to Arkham quietly." Not a word about what I would do once I got there, though...

"Wait a minute." Beautiful was trying to throw in a monkey wrench. "What if you can't get her back? What if she's dead?"

"Oh, didn't I mention?" I smiled nicely at her, and she shrank back. "Batsy here knows. Gracie's already dead..."

* * *

A/N: I have Elizabeth Tudor to thank for my knowledge of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you prefer your deity to be a complex, edible carbohydrate, you couldn't do better than the FSM.


	89. And There Was Much Rejoicing

Lady Shiva gritted her teeth and lowered the needle-nosed tweezers to her arm once again. A drop of antiseptic, simultaneously chilly and burning, rolled down the points to further torment her much-abused skin. It could not be helped, except by this…She tried not to scratch her flesh as she teased out another one of the sesame seeds. The seed was slick, though, and it slipped away from the needle-sharp ends, which gouged another bleeding hole in her once-lovely skin.

Throwing the offending implement to the floor, she wept. Healer had given her a vial of some preparation to soothe the infernal affliction which was shingles, telling her to pour it into a bath and add some sesame before she turned her attention to yet another victim of either the Grudge or the Joker. Shiva was certain the woman had not said 'sesame oil', as she now claimed, simply 'sesame', and so Shiva had gone to the kitchen, where she found two kinds of that seed—white and black. Taking a generous handful of each, she had drawn a tub of water, scattered in the seeds and sprinkled the contents of the vial liberally on the surface before she got in.

The water instantly relieved a lot of the fevered itching while the medicinal soak worked its wonders, and for the first time in hours, Lady Shiva relaxed. It was so soothing, in fact, that she nodded off, the first time she had ever done so in the tub. Her sleep, such as it was, was troubled by disturbing, watery dreams of her sister Zijuan, the sister she had killed to prove her worth to Ra's Al Ghul. She was swimming in a river with her sister, as they had when they were young, when her sister disappeared under the surface.

Panicking, Shiva (no, she was not Lady Shiva then, she was Qingwen) called for her sister, treading water, murky, deep water, which under the surface was bone-chillingly cold. Then Zijuan's arms came up and seized Qingwen around the neck, pulling her under, and Zijuan's face, inches from her own, was pale and rotting, her short cropped hair roiling around her head like a corrupt halo.

Jerking upright, Lady Shiva woke in a tub of water which had lost all its heat. There was no vengeful corpse sharing it with her—she must have gradually toppled face-down in it. Draining the tub, Shiva reached for a towel. Healer's potion had done her a great deal of good, she could tell—but the sesame seeds clung to her skin like ticks (which they greatly resembled). A shower would take care of that, however.

But it did not. As she passed the soap over her shoulder, some of the seeds washed off, but at least as many did not. Looking more closely, she realized that the blisters raised by the shingles virus had burst. Some of the sesame seeds had gone into the holes, lodging under her skin…

Lady Shiva's scream brought people running, as chaotic as the attack that day had left them, and the looks of revulsion on their faces told her more than she wanted to know. The black sesame seeds looked like ticks feasting on her blood, the white ones like maggots dining on her flesh. On her face, her neck, her chest, her limbs--she was now disgusting, hideous.

_I will never be the same again_, she realized now, several days later. _Even if I heal without a scar, I will never put this behind me. I will never exult in my youth, my beauty, my power again. This I have learned: those things are illusions. The body is a bag of meat, and some day it will go bad. Sooner or later, it will inevitably go bad. _She alone remained in the house. Of all the Shadow League, not one would stay behind with her. She had not one true friend in the world. She had been betrayed, cruelly betrayed. _Zijuan, would you have stayed with me_? Lady Shiva wondered. _Would you have betrayed me--had I not betrayed you?_

She did not expect or want to hear an answer, but she heard voices, indistinct, from somewhere in the house. As they came closer, they became louder and more distinct. The voices were not female, and they were speaking American English. Not the ghosts of her mother and sister, then. She froze, reaching for a robe. Alone as she was, and as--as _oozy_ and oversensitive as her skin condition was, any covering seemed like an unbearable burden. Consequently she was naked. Moving was no longer the smooth flow of trained muscles it had been; now she had to ease herself along with care lest she tear a fragile scab open, like carrying an overstacked tray of the finest eggshell porcelain.

"...but why the ladder?" asked a voice she half-recognized. It was a voice that was trying to rasp darkly in a lower register than was natural for it, and it made the speaker sound like he was suffering from a heavy sore throat. The Master's favorite pupil, the Gotham billionaire, Bruce Wayne/Batman. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I don't, uh, know. You ought to know by now that I don't plan things out the way you do. Not a very fast learner, huh?" That voice was all too familiar; nasal, slightly off key not just in tone but in tune with the rest of humanity. The Joker.

"Then why bring it?" Batman grated out.

"What are you complaining about? I'm not asking you to carry it. Got your panties in a bunch under that body armor, have we? Whadda wear under that, anyway?" There was a leer in the clown's voice, thicker than butter.

The only response was a growl.

"Y'see, this is the one fly in the ointment of our, uh, relationship. Your repartee leaves a lot to be desired. Oh, you get off a good line now and then, but, the, uh, the wit isn't there."

"We have no relationship and I don't care about your opinion of my conversation. Just tell me what the ladder is for." Batman sounded as though he was sorely put-upon.

"Ladder-s are a naturally, uh, _humorous_ prop in slapstick. I was planning to, um, improvise as the mood hit me."

"More than the mood is going to hit you in a moment." _Such as my fist_ was distinctly implied.

"Promises, promises. Anyhow, I don't know what good coming, uh, out here did. I could have _told_ you they would high-tail it out of here. Nobody's here and this is not getting Gracie back any faster. Let's go."

"Wait a moment." Batman's voice commanded.

"For what?" The Joker sounded peeved.

"There's a source of heat on this floor which corresponds to a living human body." Shiva jerked involuntarily at that statement of fact.

"And, uh, how do you know _that_?" inquired the villain archly.

"I have infrared sensors built into the suit."

"Aren't _you_ the clever one?"

Had she been at her best, she would have, could have, outpaced the Bat and the Joker easily. Every instinct in her told her to fight or flee, but quelling them, Lady Shiva swallowed her pride and spoke out. "It is I." _They betrayed me! They left me here alone! "_What do you want to know? I will render you any aid I can."

* * *

A/N: So, where have I been? If you've been following my other story, The Secrets of Scary People, you know that I lost one pet cat this summer to chronic kidney failure. Now his brother Calvin, from the same litter, has been diagnosed with the same disease. He's in a much earlier stage, and with treatment he may live longer than Hobbes did. Still, it's been a crappy year all around.


	90. How beautiful is Death?

At some point the agony stopped. I assumed I was dead again, which would have been good except that Jay was not there. His absence was worrisome—who knew what he would get up to without me there? While I could never claim to control him, I could at least affect what he did, usually for the better, and—oh, damn it all, why did I have to care like this about him?

"Why shouldn't you care about him?" asked a female voice, rather young, colored with sincerity. "Nobody's evil from the inside. Hurt, lost, lonely, afraid, yes. Some of them think they're the only real thing in the world. But not evil. You know him from the inside, so of course you care about him." I opened my eyes to see a ceiling, sat up, and looked around.

I was in someone's apartment. Whose, I had no idea. It wasn't the Passion Pit and I hoped it wasn't mine, because it was a mess. I didn't think it was mine. "Who said that?" I asked.

"Right here," said the voice from behind me. "And I am so glad I could finally get you to hold still for a moment so we can talk. You want anything first though? A glass of water or something?"

I twisted around to see a supernatural being sitting on a sofa strewn with discarded garments. How did I know she was supernatural? Well, she had Asian features, but her skin was pure white, not like Caucasian skin, not like the skin of someone with albinism, not even like Jay's makeup. She was as white as a blank sheet of paper, so white she was nearly blue. Other than that, she looked like a somewhat Gothy but cute teenage girl, dressed in black, with Eqyptian style eye makeup and an ankh around her neck to go with it. Eyeliner that thick should have looked tacky and affected, but on her it worked.

"Um, no, I'm okay. Who are you?" I asked. If I had ever met her, I couldn't remember when or where.

"I'm Death. As in, the Angel of." For someone who claimed to be the Angel of Death, she was remarkably upbeat, but not to the point of chirpy. She just gave the impression of being one of those rare, genuinely warm people who are great listeners and see the best side of everyone they know. Exactly the sort of person you'd want to have as a friend, in other words.

"Death." I said, getting up and looking around for somewhere to sit that wasn't the floor.

"Uh-huh. You can have the armchair. Just push those magazines on the floor anywhere, it's okay."

I did so. "Somehow I would have thought you'd be more skeletal and masculine."

"Yeah. I get that a lot. But being an anthromorphic personification is more than just the image people have in mind. It's more complicated than that. For one thing, I'm not specifically Asian--people see me as the same race they themselves are."

"I'll take your word for it." I looked around. "Am I being busted for not coming along quietly when it was time or something?"

"No! No, nothing like that. There are some things you ought to know, and this was the easiest way of getting in contact with you."

"But why do you need to talk to _me_?" I asked.

"There are several reasons, and they're not that easy to explain. You're going to have to make some decisions soon, and I thought you should be better informed ahead of time. Y'see, I...this is harder than I thought it would be. Okay, I'll get back to that part and start with the part about the Joker and Batman. Jay--your Jay--stumbled over a deeper truth than he knew. They think they've only just begun fighting--when it's actually been going on since 1940."

"How is that possible? Neither one of them is even forty yet!"

"You know what alternative universes are, right?"

"Of course. Whenever a science fiction show on TV starts running out of ideas, they do an episode where all the good guys are bad guys and vice versa. Then one of the good guys winds up in the alternative universe, and more often than not, they have to get that universe back on track before it implodes. It seems to me to be a waste of a concept, but hey, I don't write for TV."

"Then you've got the basic idea and I don't have to go into detail. Except that there isn't just one, there are millions, and more every day. Now...remember how in Peter Pan, the book Peter Pan, that is, there's the moment where Tinkerbelle is dying because she drank Peter's poisoned medicine?"

"Yes. The narrator asks all the children reading or listening to it to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, so she'll live. But she's fictional, and it's only a story...are you saying that somewhere in the multiverse, Jay and Batman are fictional?"

"You really do understand!" She looked thrilled. "But to really understand how far it goes, we're going to have to visit yo--_my brother_, Morpheus. That is, Dream."

Her place may have looked like a messy apartment on the outside, but when we left it to go to the Realm of Sleep--well, it was different. Very different. M.C. Escher would have gotten a headache. Dream's realm, as literally nightmareish as it could be, was normal and familiar in comparison. We entered through the gate of horn, (I remembered that line from the Aeneid about true dreams coming out the gate made from horn, while false ones left through the gate of ivory. It was interesting to see that they existed.)

Dream himself was (or at least looked like) an Asian kid about ten years younger than me, not unlike my cousin Dorje, except that he was white-haired as well as white-skinned. Garbed all in white, the only relief was his dark eyes and the emerald medallion around his neck. When he spoke, it was hesitantly and with long pauses between the words, giving the impression he was either stoned out of his head or else suffered from some form of narcolepsy which caused mini-blackouts.

"Gotham City...Batman...the Joker--all of these are so...strongly believed in...as stories, on countless numbers of Earths, that...they cannot escape from the rhythms and the...paths of Story...so 'Chaos' as such....has no meaning. Stories...there are only so many basic plots....and variations, with a limited number of ways... in which they can end. These are...merely a selection of the tales that have been told....and will be told...but from them...you can see a pattern emerging."

We were in Dream's infinite library--and it _was_ infinite--, where I was skimming through an enormous stack of old comics, graphic novels, books, and other forms of media, each full to bursting with the adventures of Batman in his never-ending fight against the forces of crime, chaos and darkness as personified by the Joker.

Both of them were nigh unrecognizable. From the simplest, child-oriented beginnings to the stories of the future, neither Batman nor his adversary looked like the realities I knew. The Joker was a spindly, stick framed dandy, almost an alien creature with naturally green hair and skin as white as that of my hosts. He was not, could not be flesh and blood. I could not imagine feeling even a flicker of desire for the capering dandy with the bad puns who cavorted over the pages, much less embracing him.--which sent a pang of painful longing for Jay through me. Jay was a person, not this caricature.

Batman was no more normal the Joker, muscled like an anatomy illustration, harder than granite, he suffered and bled like a martyr. No human could endure all he went through, as thin spandex shredded under the onslaught of...whatever it was in that issue. More tortured than Hamlet, more brilliant than Sherlock Holmes, he swung through Gotham like Tarzan through the Jungle, accompanied sometimes by a boy, sometimes a girl--.

"This is what Jay saw, on Fear Night!" I exclaimed.

"Yes." said Death. "The universe you live in is...based, sort of, on a couple of movies with Christian Bale as Batman, so it looks and sounds different. What's the constant, though?"

"Batman is the hero. Even when it focuses on the Joker, or tells the Joker's story, the Joker always loses."

"Uh-huh. But what you're living, your life--who is the hero of that?" Death asked me.

"I am." I replied.

"So who is going to win?"

* * *

A/N: Continuing to have problems writing, phooey. Christmas craziness. Calvin, my cat is stable, responding to treatment well. Hope this chapter is okay...


	91. We Interrupt This Story

A/N: Um, okay. This is a story within the story, something outside of the current Jay and Gracie storyline, which I'm blocked on. In fact, it is technically a crossover with the Arkham Asylum game in which Jay and Grace wind up in that world. So it will be Joker vs. Joker and Gracie vs. Harley, not to mention all the other fun characters from our favorite home for the mentally disturbed, IE: Victor Zsasz, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Bane and Killer Croc, plus a supporting cast of some several hundred Joker henchmen, Asylum inmates and staff, with a cameo by Commissioner Gordon. But no Batman. Probably not, anyway. I've been blocked for so long and written nothing at all and I had to do something. So I hope all of my readers will enjoy this look at them from a different perspective.

* * *

The Joker was miffed. No,it was worse that that. He was irked, and possibly on the way to being ticked off. Here He had set up a _delightful_ play date with Batsy—even if Batsy didn't know it yet—with lots and lots of fun surprises in store including violent death and ten-foot tall monsters—and Batsy had not shown. Moreover, the Gotham PD had shown a little smarts for once, and actually caught Him. Caught Him! Yes, He had been trying to make it easy, but that was so the _Bat_ would be sure to catch Him, not the Keystone Kops. So now He was sitting on His ass in the vehicle they used to transport inmate/patients to Arkham Island, and quite uncomfortable thanks to having His hands cuffed behind him rather than in front.

Maybe He shouldn't have killed His lawyers after all. They might be useful in a situation like this, but that was all blood under the bridge at this point. Literally… And the transport was not only stuffy, it was smelly and hot. He was offended, and said as much to the guard.

"Shut up," the man explained.

This really was annoying, and worse, boring. However, something did come along to alleviate the tedium, at least momentarily. Someone banged on the side of the transport. "Two more for the bughouse," said a voice.

The guard slid the door open. "What'd they do?" he asked.

"Ran afoul of the Bogue-47s," said the police officer who stood there, naming a famously vicious independent street gang. Independent in the sense that they didn't belong to one of the many supervillains, that is. Chemical dependencies were another thing entirely.

"And they're still alive?" the guard asked.

"Yeah." The officer helped a young woman into the vehicle, making sure she didn't bump her head—not out of chivalry, but because her hands were also cuffed behind her. "Six of the Bogues are dead."

"Seven," the young lady corrected.

"There were only six bodies," the officer told her.

"Seven dead, though. My shoes—well, they were hungry." The Joker looked at her feet. The transport could easily hold twenty-four, but before this He had had it to himself, and He had taken the padded rear seat rather than the uncushioned benches at the front. She was not so far away that He couldn't see her, though. She had on a pair of pink high-heeled shoes. Even in the half-light inside the transport, the color was astonishing, like a couple of exotic flowers that happened to be shoe-shaped. _Well, of course. They're lady-slippers_. He giggled at the thought.

"Uh-huh. According to her, her shoes ate somebody, so she's going to be your guest for a while. And as for him--you're not gonna _believe_ who he thinks he is....." Whatever the officer whispered to the guard, it must have been hilarious--at least to them.

"So what are their names?" asked the guard.

"No idea. She didn't have any ID or anything, not even a purse or a cell phone. Nothing in his pockets but knives and a little money."

"You, uh, forgot the _lint_," said a slightly nasal male voice.

"Nothing in the system on them either. It's like they don't exist."

"So what_ is_ your name?" the guard asked.

"Uhmmmm, lemme think--James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree." said the male voice.

The girl came back at him with another line, "'Took great care of his mother. Although he was only three'. It's a poem by A.A. Milne--he came up with Winnie-the-Pooh."

"Riiiight." said the guard. "Okay. John Doe. What about you?"

"I'd claim I was Kayako Saeki if it wouldn't go right over your head." she replied. The Joker looked at her more closely. She had the shiny, straight black hair He associated with Asians, but He couldn't see her face.

"Jane Doe it is." said the guard. "Okay, load him in." The officer shoved the young man in, the guard slid shut the panel separating the passenger compartment from the rest of the vehicle, and a moment later the transport's engine rumbled to life.

As the vehicle made a turn in the parking lot, the young man said, "I don't want to sit up here. Let's go to the back." Changing seats in a moving vehicle was awkward even when not handcuffed behind the back, but they got up anyway. "Crap, somebody's already there--."

"Jay--do you see?" The girl did not finish the sentence. She didn't have to. Everybody knew Him on sight. The Joker sat up a little straighter and waited for them to express their honor at being in His Glorious presence. Or cower in fear, which was even better.

...but they didn't. "Uh--isn't this interesting?" asked the young man rhetorically.

They sat down next to each other about a third of the way down from the Joker. Now that He could see them more clearly, He quickly dismissed the boy as boring and the girl as having potential. Despite the tasteful pattern of fresh bloodstains, the boy's suit had no style, no style at all, being grey and very ordinary. Nothing like His majestic purple suit or His orange waistcoat, let alone His natty white spats. Not everyone could be gifted with a sartorial sense like His, though, and He was a big enough man to feel pity for those less fortunate on that front. Poor young man, to be so dull so soon.

On second glance, however, the Joker percieved that the young man's hair was tinged with green. Nothing at all like His sleek, sophisticated emerald locks, but better than just plain brown. The girl showed off some shapely leg below the frothy hem of her dress, which was a rather attractive sour-apple-candy green, but most of her face was obscured by her hair. Her mouth looked bruised, but her demeanor was not that of a cowed victim. If she had been in a fight, she had not come out the loser.

If He was studying them, they were studying Him. The boy giggled irritatingly. "Aer you, uh, wearing _make-up_?" he asked.

"Are you?" retorted the Joker. Come to think of it, there _was _something odd about the texture of the young man's face.

"I asked first," retorted the youngster (the Joker judged him to be about fifteen years younger than he).

"So you did... The answer is no. Perfection cannot be improved upon, after all." He lifted His chin so they could admire His profile better.

"On the other hand, there are certain lilies that could use a bit of gilding." murmured the young woman derisively.

The Joker snapped His head back down and glared at her. "And some people could use a belt in the kisser." he stated with a growl.

"Too late!" she declared in a cheerful voice, her tongue flicking quickly over her split and discolored lips.

"But there's always room for improvement--what are you doing?" His attention had been hijacked by the young man, who had started to squirm in his seat, chafing first one side of his face and then the other against the shoulders of his suit. His skin was peeling off in strips--no, it was thin pieces of latex or something like it, stuck down with some kind of adhesive and then daubed with make-up.

"To answer your question," His face now bare, the insolent puppy locked his eyes on the Joker's while turning his face, the better to show off the messy scars which pulled his mouth into a perpetual smile, "I _was_ wearing make-up. You, uh, wanna know how I got these scars?"

"I will admit to being mildly interested. You may go on," said the Clown Prince of Crime magnanimously.

"Uh. Okay," The young man grimaced, looked down and scuffed his foot along the transport floor in boyish embarrassment. "It's kinda stupid, actually. I had this normal childhood, see? Bothers and sisters, big yard, lots of friends. We used to play make-believe a lot. So one day, we decide we're going to play pirates. And what do pirates do when they attack a ship? They swing over on ropes with these, uh, cutlasses between their teeth. So I got this knife from the kitchen--the big butcher knife, actually--Thing is, I never noticed they put them in their mouths sharp side _out_, so when I tripped...." He winced.

The Joker didn't. "I don't believe a word of it."

"Suit yourself."

"Why didn't your parents have your face sewn up properly, then?" the Joker pressed.

The boy shrugged. "No health insurance."

"Is he telling the truth?" The Joker turned to the girl.

"I've heard him tell the story of how he got his scars many times." she stated. "He always tells the truth."

"Yes, but do you?" the Joker asked. He was beginning to suspect that these two were in the supervillain game, too. They had moved so smoothly despite the restraints, and there were other signs. He had never encountered them before, but there were so many--they weren't greenhorns, for those who were entirely new to it tended to swagger brashly, insecure young bucks trying to take down the King Stag. The cool effrontery these two displayed said they were at least middleweights. They weren't Punch and Jewelee, he knew them... Were there any other couple supervillain duos other than himself and Harley? "Who are you, anyway?"

"Me?" she asked. "I'm nobody."

"Then I'm nobody's fool." the young man returned immediately. "And I _like_ to hold a grudge...." He clearly thought that was rather funny, because he laughed, but the girl made a huffy sound.

Then suddenly she was sitting very close to the Joker. He flinched a trifle, instinctively. He hadn't seen her get up and move. Not that she had scared Him, for nothing scared Him. He was startled, that was all. She leaned closer. Her face was still mostly hidden by her hair, and she swayed with the motion of the transport. "He really isn't wearing any make-up and his hair isn't dyed. Also, he doesn't smell right," she said.

"Well! There's no call to get personal here!" the Joker said, offended.

"What, uh, do you mean by 'not right'?" asked the young man.

"Not entirely human," she said, slowly. "There's acetone...and carbon tetrachloride, I think--and it can't be cleaning solvant from his clothes because _that_ suit hasn't seen the inside of a dry cleaner's shop since the day it was made."

"Pfah!" the Joker exclaimed. For a moment He was simply 'he', in the lower-case, as He glanced down at His suit, which was patched in places with fabric that didn't quite match, and mottled with stains of various kinds in others. The fabric flower pinned to it was limp, bedraggled, and His shoes were scuffed. An uneducated, unenlightened person (such as this girl) might, on first glance, see Him as...shabby. And old. And ridiculous--not in a good way either,with His long spindly limbs and flamboyant mannerisms. The boy still had his eyes locked on the Joker's, with an infuriatingly calm expression on his face. Very few people could keep their calm in His presence, and He did not like it. He began to think of ways He would like to kill them, separately and together. "Remind Me to kill you very slowly, when I get around to it."

"Too late!" she said, cheerfully, as she had when He mentioned punching her in the face.

"These cuffs will be coming off soon enough. Just you wait....Again, I ask--who _are_ you?"

"Now this is where it gets, uh, complicated," the young man said. "I prefer to keep things simple and this one evades explanation anyhow. I am the Joker, and this is my lovely wife, the Grudge."

The Joker nearly laughed His last meal onto the transport floor. "You? You're the Joker? With that drab suit and your pink skin and your hair that's a poor excuse for green? You're saying that you--you! are Me?! No wonder they're sending you to Arkham! And they call Me crazy! This is just too good!"

"I, uh, never said I was you. I said I was _the Joker_. In another universe, that is. This suit is what I wear when I, uh, like to be incognito, although Gracie sometimes gives the game away. As for the hair and the make-up--is that _all_ that makes you the Joker? Just a case of hypopigmentation and hair that, uh, looks an awful lot like a lawn divot on top of your head?"

"You know what they say," added the Grudge, or Gracie, or Kayaky Sack or whatever she had said earlier, "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone." That did it. He really was going to have to kill them in some painful and humilliating way, and an idea was beginning to form in his mind.

"And there's another reason why you couldn't possibly be The Joker," He said to the impostor, the pretender, "because little wifey there would know better than to run her mouth like that. It could be _fatal_, you know."

"That's my sassy girl. Gracie wouldn't be Gracie if she wasn't snarky," the pretender replied.

"The two of you ought to have a joke-off to see who wins. That's spelled J-O-K-E, not J-E-R-K, so spare me the smutty comments," suggested the so-called wife.

"Say--that's an excellent idea!" the Joker exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm. "You see, I had this wonderful party planned out for Bats, and I was absolutely devastated when he stood Me up. Months of planning down the drain--but now that the two of you have turned up, maybe it won't have to be canceled after all."

The faux Joker and the Grudge exchanged glances. "Sounds like, uh, fun," said the imitation. "What do you say, Sassy Girl?"

"As if I had a prayer of stopping you," she retorted. "What kind of party is this--why am I even asking? It wouldn't be fun for you if there weren't a double digit body count at the end of the night."

"No, no, it's a good question--Let's see. This was My latest, and greatest plan to crush both Gotham and Batman for good, so I'm just going to go right ahead with My plans while _you_ try and stop Me. How does that work for you?"

"Hmmmm," said the impostor. "You'll have lots of henchmen on your side, plus all your plans and plenty of toys, while I'll be all on my lonesome except for Gracie here, without even a knife to my name. Sounds fair enough to me."

"Splendid! This is going to be such fun!" The transport had passed the Asylum gates and crossed the bridge to the island. Slowing as it drew near the front doors of Admissions, it came to a halt with a sigh of exhaust fumes. The sound of the door opening was a snap remarkably like the breaking of a spine.

* * *

Kayako Saeki is the name of the ghost in the Grudge movies. Tomorrow I will be working like mad on getting caught up on reviews. See you soon!


	92. Invisibility

I really shouldn't go giving Jay ideas. He comes up with quite enough of them on his own. 'And how do you envision this working?' I asked him mentally as the guard ordered me out of that hideous vehicle.

_Well, he planned all this out with the idea that he was going up against Batman, didn't he? Batsy, as everybody knows, doesn't kill. Hell, he doesn't even do the kind of damage that lasts. It's one thing to throw guys against someone when they know the worst that's going to happen is a headache, a few bruises, maybe some cracked ribs. So when his expendables realize that I take no prisoners, they're not going to have the same enthusiasm. They'll break_.

'I'm concerned about **you** getting broken ...Jay, this is not the Arkham we know.' I looked around at the grounds of a place I had never seen before, getting my bearings. Our Arkham was a sizeable institution in the middle of the Narrows, which was arguably the worst neighborhood in Gotham. This Arkham was set on an island, not far from the Gotham lighthouse in the bay—I could see its beam revolving in the half-light of dusk. Behind the transport was a long drive lined with leafless sycamore trees—it was Autumn here, the air had the bite of October—leading down to a skeletal wrought iron fence and gate flanked by a pair of mournful Symbolist angels holding lanterns in each hand. To the left was the hollow shell of a decayed building braced with girders. To the right was a stone outcropping topped with—a greenhouse? No, it was too fancy for a simple greenhouse. It was a Victorian era conservatory. Above and behind that was a clock tower, part of some other large building.

Directly before me was a red brick building circa about 1925, industrial-Art Deco in style. It looked like a factory, but above the door were the words 'Intensive Treatment' spelled out in long metal letters, some of which were askew or reversed. What I found most sinister about it were the towering smokestacks which sprouted from the building. Something about them reminded me of concentration camp incinerators.

The guard who had ridden shotgun on us from the police station was now telling Jay to come out. "Wha—what happened to your face?" he asked, doing a double take at the scars, and small wonder. It must have seemed as though they had magically appeared during the trip.

Jay' brow furrowed in thought. "Uh—Contact dermatitis," he said, nodding toward the remaining prisoner in the vehicle. "I'm allergic to slapstick."

The guard scoffed. "Guess _everybody_ thinks they're a joker these days."

"I couldn't have put that better myself," growled the Other Joker from the depths of the transport.

Jay was directed to stand to the side by me while four security guards in flak vests and helmets with face shields, their weapons at the ready, flanked the transport. "All right, Joker. Come on out, and don't make any sudden moves." snarled a fifth guard. The odor of whisky hung about him in a cloud, almost visible as a haze in the air. Curiously, he had a long, high-ridged scar running down his face from forehead to cheek, bisecting a dead eye, white and bleary blue. Why would he not bother replacing it with a glass eye?

'That guy is a squealer,' Jay said ominously. 'He may squeal in the opposite direction, but I can still tell and he's still a squealer.' Which did not bode well for the officer's life expectancy.

Other Joker stepped out of the transport like a dignitary emerging from a plane, a conquering general returning home, and greeted the alcoholic guard like he was an old college friend. "Hey, Frank-kay! How's the wife and kids? You miss me?"

"Shut up, clown! There's a lot of people in there who want to have a word with you." The guard stepped within the Other Joker's cordon of guards to clap the clown on the shoulder, roughly, propelling him toward a upright restraint board, two more guards at the ready to strap him down.

"Really, I don't mind walking!" Other Joker huffed as the guard, (his ID badge read 'F. Boles') spun him around, removed the cuffs, and slammed him in place. The orderlies fastened him down with alacrity, and he admonished them with good cheer. "Not so tight, boys. You'll crease the suit!" Said suit was past creasing, as several of the seams were holed and frayed, not to mention solid colored patches had been sewed on top of the original striped fabric, and it was never that great to begin with. But even though Other Joker had a chin like a frying pan handle, although he had body odor like a chemistry lab sink, although his hair did look like a fake grass welcome mat, for all that was wrong and innately ludicrous about him, he had both malevolence and charisma crackling around him like lightning around Frankenstein's monster.

He also had that hearty, falsely cheerful voice common to all children's entertainers, only developed to a degree of such offensiveness that I wanted to hit him in the head with a rock just to shut him up. I communicated as much to Jay, who replied, _Don't let me stop you._

'Um--later maybe. It would draw too much attention right now_.'_

The doors of the Intensive Treatment building opened like the airlocks of a spaceship, and Joker was wheeled in like nothing so much as a dolly of beer. Despite the restraints which bound him, the four armed guards still covered every angle, ready to fire. We were ordered to fall in behind, with one guard behind us. A short, stocky older man barred the way, his hands gripping a cane as if for protection. Other Joker sang out, "Hey, Sharpie! Love what you've done to the place!"

"That's _Warden Sharp_ to you," the man snapped. "Get this filthy degenerate out of here! Who are these two?" he asked as we passed.

"Here for evaluation," said the transport guard.

"But..." Sharp looked from Jay to Other Joker and back again, his brow furrowing. "Oh, I don't care. Send them to the appropriate department. As for the Joker—I want him cured this time. Otherwise he'll start to compromise my campaign for mayor." He continued to bluster as our grotesque little parade passed the portals and headed for the heart of darkness.

Once inside the building, a short dark hall opened out into an enormous space which made the factory comparison even more apt. It was larger than a cathedral, and at least four stories high. A sort of bunker the size of a house squatted in the center of the space, pierced by a tunnel large enough to drive a car through. Jay and I waited while a lift platform lowered the Other Joker and his guards down to the lowest level, and I looked around some more.

'Someone should have told the architect to lay off the opium pipe', I told Jay. 'Who puts huge gargoyles _inside_ a building_?'_

_I like them_, he disagreed. _They remind me of Bats_.

'He'd feel right at home here, wouldn't he?'

_Speaking of whom..._

_'_Yes_?'_

_It's gonna be your job to do all the heroic stuff. I can't be bothered with it and I know you care about that kind of thing_.

'Such as?'

_Rescuing people. Protecting innocent bystanders, yadda yadda_.

'Oh, **that** stuff. You're only suggesting that because then I won't be there objecting when you kill his henchmen.'

The platform returned, and we stepped on. Further down the huge chamber, Other Joker was going through the tunnel, which turned out to be a very large and comprehensive scanner. His voice carried back to us, "I miss the good old cavity search. It was so much more personal."

'I don't think I should go through that thing'. I told Jay. Given that I was a ghost who could only seem tangible and alive, if I were to go through the scanner, it would almost certainly pick up readings that were incompatible with human life, which would then mean that people would get overexcited. I would not want to expose them to unnecessary stress, especially since it seemed the night to come would get very stressful very quickly.

_And I don't think my shoes should go through it either_. Jay was telling the truth when he said he didn't have _**a **_knife to his name. He had two knives, which the Gotham Police had missed because they were built into his shoes, spring-loaded at the toes. Many quality handmade leather shoes still have a heavy steel shank running through them, and that was all Jay's shoes seemed to be, but this car-wash sized scanner looked to be more comprehensive. If all hell were about to break loose, as it very likely would, Jay would need his shoes. The only problem was that although I could pull a ghostly vanishing, I couldn't bring his shoes with me. I could be invisible, but not tangible at the same time, and to carry something I had to be physically tangible.

I am not a very powerful creature, but even if I only have a handful of supernatural tricks, I make do.

'Okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to bug out in a moment, nip around to some corner where there isn't a security camera aimed at me, and come back looking like one of the medical staff. Step out of your shoes now and leave them behind for me to come and collect.'

_'Right...'_

However, there is more than one way of being invisible. There is the kind where no one can see you, and then there's the kind where no one notices you. At a moment when no one's eyes were on me, I disappeared into thin air, and went off to find some privacy to take on the_ other_ kind of invisibility. Any urban or suburban medical facility of size today has on staff at any given time half a dozen or more female nurses, lab techs, phlebotomists, assistants, etc. from a foreign country. They range in age from their twenties to their forties, and their skin can come in any shade of brown, from dark beige to mahogany. Ethnically ambiguous, they may be from Peru or the Philippines or Pakistan, from Thailand or Trinidad and Tobego, and they're in America because the money is better than in the best hospital back home, and they have parents, siblings, children to support. Human resources offices love to hire them because they work very hard. All of them are functionally fluent in English, although they speak it with an accent. I could pass for Hispanic, if you squinted a little, my skin was dark beige, and I could fake an accent.

When I walked back around the corner seconds later I was wearing what looked like standard-issue mint green scrubs and sensible square-toes nurse's shoes. My hair was French-braided off my face in a style which would have taken half an hour to do, and my face was clean and unmarked. I wore an Arkham staff ID with my picture and the name B. Chen. Security would be looking for a escaped inmate in a fancy green dancing dress and pink high heels with a bruised face whose hair was loose. Not a staff member whose only touch of originality was that her shoes were pink.

As I passed the knot of security around Jay, they were asking him, "Where did your girlfriend go?"

Jay batted his eyes and smiled at them. "Did you, uh, try the ladies' room?"

No one paid any attention to me as I scooped his unattended shoes off the floor along the way.


	93. Tick Tock

No matter how good the hardware may be, any security system is only as good as the goofballs they've got running it. Let's face it, the best and brightest don't go for careers as security guards in mental institutions. I found out a long time ago that the easiest way to get me and my knives past a 'secure' doorway was to send a guy with a gun through first. Then they're so busy dealing with him that I waltzed on through unchallenged. The same principle was at work here: they noticed Gracie was gone, leaving her handcuffs neatly behind, still locked, but nobody noticed my nice plaid socks, now on display for the whole asylum to see because my shoes were elsewhere.

As an example of why the security was for shit around this Arkham, there was the guard, Frank Boles. I don't like drinkers; I've fired a few, in my time, when one turned up in my crew. Usually with gasoline or a gun. Not only was Boles a drunk, he openly wore a hip flask on his belt. When somebody like that doesn't get canned, it means the job is so crappy they can't get anybody else. Then the guys who otherwise might be decent see him and figure if he can get away with it, they don't have to do any better, and the whole force goes to hell. There are always a few exceptions, a few who do a good job anyway, but integrity like that is rare.

Meanwhile, Grace had come and gone right past this bunch of yahoos as smooth as lemon buttercream, and nobody gave her a second glance. I wiggled my toes; the pimpled vinyl flooring was chilly but not as chilly as if we were standing on the ground floor--that meant there were levels below this one. I filed that away for future reference, and waited for them to get tired of shouting questions at me and at each other and at people on the guard radio.

The only guard I noted who had both brains and balls was a big guy named Cash (imagine Lawrence Fishburn with a neat goatee in the role) who seemed to be senior. He was missing a hand, and wore one of those pincher-hook prosthetics. "Keep your weapons trained on Joker the whole time. You outta be watching him so close you can count his blinks!" he said, when things looked to be getting lax in all the excitement.

Although it held things up, Gracie's disappearing act got me moved to the head of the line, ahead even of Bozo, who was wheeled aside so they could concentrate on grilling me. Bozo (AKA The Joker of this world) was not really pleased about that, but not so unhappy that he couldn't make remarks like, "All of this new security, and you can't keep tabs on one not-so-little girl? Then don't blame me when I just WALTZ RIGHT THROUGH IT! Is_ anyone_ listening to me?"

Back to the security. I had to say I didn't think much of their hardware either. Why not? For one thing, they relied too much on electricity, like for instance, the human bug zappers which they had instead of doors in some areas. When the only thing between a deranged murderer, like me, and you or someone like you, is a forcefield, what happens when the power goes out? Let's not go deluding ourselves here. The power can always go out. One way or another. What about battery backups? They can fail. Generators? They fail too—especially when the fuel runs out.

Yeah, I know the one about 'stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage'—but they're a hell of a lot better than nothing at all, and nothing is what you've got when something shorts out your bug-zapper. That was the worst example, but I also noticed a few ventilation grills in the walls which were big enough for a guy my size to crawl through, and the grills themselves were fastened by bolts and nuts. The nuts were on the outside, and I didn't see any welds, so anybody with a wrench—or even a thumb and forefinger—could get them loose in a hurry. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

In my experience, failsafes are usually more 'fail' than 'safe', and _nothing_, nothing is foolproof. Especially when I'm the fool.

After a while they got tired of getting no answers out of me. Guard Cash ordered, "Get them out of here!"

"I'll deal with you later, Cash," Bozo threw back in passing, "Don't think I've forgotten--Speaking of forgetting, is that a crocodile I hear? Tick tock, tick tock, Captain Hook!" Cash fell in behind the other guards, keeping an eye on them and us. The drunk guard, Boles, led the parade, followed by the two who were wheeling Bozo, then two more guards who had their weapons aimed at him, then me, then _my_ guard, who held his gun at portarms (I wasn't considered as great a threat, that was why), and finally, as I mentioned before, Cash.

We went through a door that had both electronic locks and a bug zapper, passing another knot of guards behind whom cringed a dark haired woman in a doctor's lab coat. Spotting her, Bozo sang out, "Ah, there's Doc Young! Pencil me in for tomorrow at four. We've got a lot of catching up to do." The last part he said with menace.

"Oh...Joker," she said, weakly. I glanced at her: another squealer. It was written all over her.

We were now in the prisoner transfer area, a long hallway divided down the long way by iron bars. As we entered, a flat screen mounted overhead lit up, and a prerecorded video of the Warden started up. "Greetings, new patient! I'm Warden Sharp. Welcome to Arkham Asylum..."

Whatever else he had to say was drowned out by Bozo. "My favorite show! 'I'm Warden Idiot. You'll never escape'." he blustered in imitation of the pudgy little head jailor.

He in turn was interrupted by a group of prisoners going the other way on the other side of the bars. "Jo-ker! Jo-ker! Jo-ker!" they chanted. I nearly waved before I remembered they couldn't be cheering for me. "Did ya hear about what happened at Blackgate, boss?" Blackgate was the other big prison in Gotham. Never been there myself; they tell me it isn't nice.

"Shut up and keep moving," said one of their guards.

"Oh, yes! How shocking." Bozo crooned. "The state of the old wiring in some of these federal facilities is so hazardous. Why, some of my poor boys could have been hurt in that terrible fire." I had the feeling I knew who had arranged that fire. It's what I would have done.

Just before we got to another set of doors, a medic halted us. "Hold it right there. Just got to check your prisoner--_prisoners_," he corrected himself.

"Do you need to take my temperature, Doc?" Bozo smarmed. "I'd be _happy_ to drop my pants."

The doctor ignored him (His scrubs were just like the ones Gracie thought up. My sassy girl is _good_.) while giving him the once over. "Looks like he's got a few contusions, a couple of hours old, and--."

"BOO!" Bozo shouted. Everyone but me jumped, the safety catches clicking off their weapons. He laughed. "Feeling a little bit nervous, are we?"

"Speak for yourself," I retorted. He tried to stare me down, but failed.

The medic checked me over next. His brow knitted when he inspected my face, but he confined his questioning to, "Is any of this blood yours?"

"No," I replied.

"Not yet, anyhow." insinuated Bozo.

"They're all yours," the doctor said.

"All right, move it along," ordered the drunk, and we passed on by into the elevator lobby, which put new meaning into the word 'utilitarian', being concrete and steel, dimly lit, and crowded with more heavily armed guards. There was no 'up' from where we were standing; we were on the top floor. The echoes and air currents told me the shafts, and therefore the building, went down deep.

'Ten levels down,' Gracie said, mentally. I could see her hanging around the outside of the group, looking the way she did when I was the only one who could see her. Don't ask me to explain how I knew. I just did.

_That's a long way_. I thought back.

'Just wait till you see it. If the original architect had a gargoyle fetish, the guy who did the underground addition, which screams late seventies to me, must have been even weirder. It looks like the inside of the Death Star--after it had been used as a crackhouse for a few years.'

_I can't wait. Why are we standing around?_

The shrieking and groaning of one of the two elevators told me even before an emotionless female voice said, "Security alert red alpha. Category nine patient is in transit. Safety catches disengaged. Shoot to kill permissions granted."

_Sounds serious. They didn't even go that far for Bozo_.

'Just wait till you see.' Gracie told me.

"You heard the lady," ordered an older guard, gravelly voiced. "We got another psycho on the way."

The huge freight elevator labored to a halt. Something shiny in it shifted as the sliding grill opened. Then, like a football player getting out of a little clown car, a hand emerged, a forearm, another hand, a head. The...occupant got out. And out. And out. And out some more, until a massive scaly...thing in purplish pants, and a heavy collar filled with green liquid like anti-freeze, laden with chains you'd use to moor a battleship, was standing there. It was at least eleven feet tall. Did I mention it had glowing yellow eyes? And lots of long pointy teeth? And scales?

"Can't you just smell the excitement?" Bozo asked. "No? Then maybe it was one of the guards. Croc, old boy! Is that you?"

"What is that?" I asked the nearest guard.

"Where've you been living?" he scoffed. "That's _Killer Croc_."

No, it wasn't. Not where I came from. I knew a guy who called himself 'Killah Croc'. Big mean son-of-a-bitch with bad teeth thanks to wearing a jeweled grill too long, nasty skin condition, always hungry, always chowing down on meat. His real name was Waylon Jones. I'd even hired him now and then. But he was identifiably a human being. Not the star of Jurassic Park Four: From the Jungle to the 'Hood.

'Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more. This Arkham is a very interesting place_.'_

_I gotta agree with you there, Gracie gal_.

This Killer Crock shifted, and the floor trembled. How much did he/it weigh? It/he lifted his head, and it sniffed the air. "You're there, Cash," he gritted. "I can smell you. " Poor eyesight? That would make sense. "It makes me hungry. Once I get a bite, I can't wait to finish the meal. AAAaaahhh!" That last was a cry of pain, as a guard with a remote control pressed something, and the liquid filled collar sparked violently.

"Get that animal out of here," Cash barked. He hid it well, but there was an edge of fear buried in his voice. I can always tell.

Speaking of which..._Gracie, you can tell these things. Did Croc eat that guy's hand_?

'I...I'm not sure. He might not have actually eaten it, but he definitely bit it off.'

Aided by more shocks from the collar, Croc shuffled off somewhere into the rest of the building. Once he was gone, Bozo said, brightly, "That reminds me. I really need to get me some new shoes."


	94. Don't Play Nice

_Speaking of shoes, Gracie-gal, where did you stash mine?_

'I found the fire stairs and I hid them on one of the landings. I'll go back for them once I know where you're going to be. Also, while we're on the topic of shoes, none of the Blackgate prisoners are wearing them. What's up with that? The floors are filthy, too.'

_Probably hospital prodecure. It's a lot harder to stomp some guy's spleen and liver into tomato paste when you don't have shoes on_.

"Okay, load'em into the elevator." the gravelly voiced guard ordered, and we got in, shedding three of the guards, one of whom was Cash. That left us with Boles, one person to wheel Bozo, another to keep a weapon pointed at him, my guard, and of course Bozo, Gracie and myself, even if Gracie wasn't visible to anyone else. The grate closed, and still more flat screens on the opposite sides of the elevator lit up with yet another message from the warden, who I was getting awfully tired of already. This time he was going on about the temporary Blackgate inmates and how everyone should avoid contact with them.

'He has pictures of himself on practically every wall.' Gracie informed me. '_Big_ ones. Napoleon complex. Classic overcompensation.'

"Hey," Bozo said, as if it had only just occured to him, "isn't it funny how a fire at Blackgate just happened to result in hundreds of my men being moved here?"

"I thought I told you to shut it, clown," Boles snarled.

"You ought to watch that big fat mouth of yours, Frankie. It'll get you into trouble one of these days," Bozo replied, silkily.

"You mean funny-strange or hah-hah funny--the fire and the move and everything?" I asked. "Funny str-ran-ge, no. I don't think it's funny strange. I can't think of anything less strange, under the, uh, circumstances..."

Right then the power cut out. The elevator stopped, the lights went dead, the flatscreens went silent and dark. The guards started to panic. "Oh, my god, oh, my god, what's he doing?" "Get a light on him, get a flashlight on him quick!"

I stayed calm and silent. I knew that whatever he had planned to happen, was happening. In a moment the power would go back on, and it would seem as if it were no more than a fluctuation, but Bozo would now be in control of everything--except us.

While the guards kept on having hysterics, getting out their flashlights, dropping them and all, Gracie said to me, 'Hospitals are actually one of the classic contemporary Asian horror settings.'

_Is that a fact, now?_

'Sure is. All the pain, all the suffering, all the dying--hospitals are packed with ghosts.'

_Have fun_.

One of the guards finally found his flashlight and trained it on Bozo--except that hanging upside down just behind him was a Dead Wet Girl. Gracie, of course, greenish-skinned, looking about a week dead and with her hair hanging down in long slimy ropes and her arms swinging limply from their sockets. "AAAAAAsssssshit! What the hell is that thing?" they cried, approximately.

Bozo couldn't see what was going on. "What are you talking about? What's there?" he snapped, trying to rutch around and see for himself, but then the light came back on and of course nobody was there. The elevator resumed its descent, the videos came back to life, and everything seemed normal once more. I knew better.

"Something dead," said Boles, shifting his gun to under his arm and grabbing his flask. Was he going to--? Yes, he he took a big swig and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"I don't know what it was and I don't want to see it again," said another guard.

"I didn't see anything un-u-sual," I offered. After all, there was nothing _unusual_ about seeing my wife.

"Hmmm," Bozo thought, "could it be that Dr. Crane is starting the festivities early? I must remember to tell him what I think about his jumping the gun. As it were."

"So Scarecrow's here too?" I asked.

"Shut it," Boles put in, but Bozo was not to be stopped.

"Only technically. He's on the premises, but somehow they just can't seem to keep him in his cell. All they get are brief glimpses of him on camera when he raids the kitchens. Heaven only knows what he's getting up to...."

The elevator clanged to a halt. "Level Nine, Security status Red Alpha," chimed the announcement system.

"Our guest has arrived," said a waiting guard with satisfaction as the grill slid aside. Boles led the way into the admissions lobby, past half a dozen guards who glared at Bozo, wanting him to give them an excuse for shooting.

One lashed out, "You killed three of my friends the last time you broke out of here, you freak!"

"Only three?" Bozo retorted, sounding as queeney as the whole cast of La Cage Au Folles, "What say I go for a hundred next time?" That was not a joke, and no one listening should have thought so.

Then things got complicated for a little while as this world's version of Commissioner Gordon got involved with checking Bozo in, and I got shunted off into a holding cell, where I began to see what Gracie meant by the lower levels looking like the Death Star converted into a crack house. First of all, old patient files littered the floor like leaves on an autumn lawn, rubber stamped 'Insane' in red ink. That had to be illegal--patient confidentiality, you know--and then there was the cell, one of four in the holding area. All of them had those bug zappers instead of doors.

The one I was shown into had ceramic tiles on the wall, but a good third of them were cracked and broken, and there were shards of tile lying around on the floor. Okay, so broken ceramics aren't nearly as sharp as broken glass, but they'll still put an eye out. This wasn't new damage, either. Broken tiles, which nobody bothered to have swept up, decorated with green graffiti, mainly question marks, a single cot with a filthy brown blanket, heavy leather straps with metal buckles, to restrain whoever needed it, a seatless toilet, more old patient files--and a couple of busted up lockers. Yes. Busted up lockers. In a holding cell. One of the doors was already off the hinges completely and leaning against the wall.

This went beyond dumb on the asylum's part. It headed into death wish territory and flirted with suicidal ideation. These people were _asking_ for it. And loudly too. _So _many things in there that could deliver some serious agony, not to mention mutilation.

My cell also already had an occupant, obviously a Blackgate transfer, because although the light of rationality did not burn in his eyes, he was muscled like Hercules (most long term to lifers are. The prison system takes healthy 18 to 24 year old men, puts them in a place where they have nothing to do and simultaneously relieves them of the burden of earning a living, where they will then spend eight hours a day, every day, working out in the prison gym.) He was white, if it matters, and wore only a pair of dirty canvas pants with leather reinforcements at the knees, where there were rings to thread manacle chains through.

His shaved head had these little yellow cones running front to back like a mohawk, and I wondered what they were as I stepped up to the toilet and took a piss. That was not so much out of necessity as to send the message, if my scars weren't enough, that I was at least as much of a hardcase as he was. Solid citizens can't relax enough to relieve themselves under those circumstances. Were those cones on his head his hair, stiffened and shaped? Were they some kind of implant? A weird bone growth, maybe?

I shook it off and tucked it away, then looked around. Ah. No sink, no hand cleanser. Call me crazy, but I'm fussy about things like that. I flushed away my by-product. Well, if the sink would have had the same water as was refilling the toilet, I was better off not washing. My dick was cleaner than that murky brew. The other three cells were in more or less the same shape as mine, and each had two Blackgater in them, also muscled like Hercules and wearing more or less the same thing as my cellmate, but varying in skin color and hair. Just a bunch of expendables, that's all.

Speaking of someone who was anything but expendable, not to mention impossible, where was Gracie with my shoes? She had left to go get them after I was shown into my current palatial accommodations. How long would it take--ah. There she was. The holding cell area was separated from the lobby on one side and whatever else was on this level on the other by still more bug zappers, industrial strength this time. Grace was behind an observation window in one of the small offices overlooking the area on the lobby side--with Commissioner Gordon, no less. She was pretending to do things in the background while he talked to a doctor. So far her little masquerade was holding, then.

The doctor left the office, and shortly after that, the bug zapper on that side fizzled off. Bozo, now walking, his hands cuffed in front of him, came down the short ramp to the holding cells, escorted by a single guard without any weapon other than a shockstick/nightstick kind of thing, and by the doctor. The zapper went back on right after they came in.

"I've got to say, it's good to be back!", Bozo roared with laughter. Then he whipped his head back, smacking the guard in the face while simultaneously elbowing him in the gut. The guy doubled over, and in a flash, Bozo had his arms around his neck from behind and was strangling him with the handcuff chain.

While the doctor pried at Bozo's hands ineffectively, he chortled, "Hurry up, Doc! I think we're losing him!"

Meanwhile, up in the offices overlooking this little comedy, the guards were going berserk, stabbing away at buttons, gesturing and shouting at each other. It seemed their security system wasn't obeying them any more--surprise, surprise! Just as I predicted, Bozo and his people were in control now. A loud thump--Gracie had a metal stool in both hands and was bashing away at the window. Cracks appeared but it was that super tough glass and wouldn't give up the fight that easily. She tried again--more cracks.

Bozo let the dead guard drop, seized the doctor's head in both hands and twisted. I heard his neck break. Dropping the doctor, he went back to frisk the guard. "The choke's on you." he punned, to the fresh corpse. A moment later, he had his hands free, straightened up and did a little ass-shaking victory dance while he sang out, "Hee-hee, Hah-hah-hah! Honey, I'm home!"

A screechy female voice came over the loudspeaker system. "But Puddin', where's the Bat?"

"There's been a slight change of plans, Kiddo. I'll tell you all about it--once I get in." he hinted sternly.

"Sorry, sweetie. I was just confused, that's all." The bug zappers on the asylum side fizzled off, and he leaped through them.

"Let's get this party started, shall we? With a _bang_!" He flung his hands in the air, and tore off down the hall way.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," his voice came out over the speaker system, "after Batman went and stood me up, I was so frustrated that I was just going to flood the asylum with poison gas and then watch cartoons. But you know how I love a captive audience, and we have a couple of other contestants on hand for our little game show, so why don't we give them a big round of applause? There's Gracie, who's an Asian girl in a fancy green dress who doesn't know how to use a hairbrush, whereabouts unknown and her lucky husband, uh---."

"Call me Jay," I suggested.

"--Jay, who's currently in the holding cells. You'll know him by the beautiful Chelsea grin he wears--that is, a smile cut right into his face--and his deplorable taste in suits. Gracie and Jay, to win the game, all you have to do is--_survive till dawn_. Have fun now, kiddies--and don't play nice."

My cellmate was looking at me with simian eyes, and now he grunted, smacking one fist into the palm of his other hand. Then the bug zapper on our door and the door of the cell directly across from us fizzled off, releasing both us and two others.

"Round one!" cried Bozo gleefully. "Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding."


	95. Creative Uses For Locker Doors

"_You're_ gonna bleed," predicted my cellmate, and drew back his arm.

A locker door might not be as humorous a prop as a ladder, but I'm adaptable. I snatched up the loose door and swung it around to meet my cellmate's fist. Instead of knocking me square into next week, he connected with metal. Klang-crunch, the door had a dent and he had a fistful of pain. I laughed, flipped the door up and sliced his head, tearing loose a flap of scalp and a couple of his pointy little cones. Scalp wounds always bleed with enthusiasm, but I didn't waste time to appreciate the details.

Three quick rams to the nose and mouth, and he flew backward, along with a few of his teeth. I usually don't begin with the head, but with so many other new playmates, I didn't want to spend too much time on just one. The others might feel neglected or unwanted and I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Just the rest of them.

"Y' see, Bozo," I said, spring-boarding off my cellmate's face as I leapt out of the cell to meet my other new friends, "I have some, uh, is-sues about your definition of winning. _You_ seem to think that we're just part of the herd." I slammed the edge of the door into the Adam's apple of the nearest expendable, then smashed his toes hard. "And. We're. Not."

Where was the other goon? Ah, he was trying to be smart. He went back to get his own locker door, but he then tried to get out of the cell the wrong way, widthwise, not lengthwise, and knocked the wind out of himself. "_I_ say that—," Pausing a moment to trip up the guy with the smashed toes, I sent him right into one of the bug zappers.

He stuck to it for a moment, twitching and babbling involuntarily before he sagged, unconscious, to the ground. I had to laugh. "That was funny. Those, uh, things are good for something after all. I say the game isn't lost or won until one or the other of us, that is, you—" The goon with his own locker door figured out how to get through the door and charged at me. I sidestepped and smacked him on the ass with my door as he went by. "Olé!" I laughed again, this time at the look on his face. "Until either you or I throw down."

"What _are _you talking about?" he asked, irritated.

"The _name._ The_ title_. There can only be _one_ Joker. That's, uh, _that's_ what this is really about. Otherwise, you'd have waited for Bats to show." The guy with the door turned around for another pass, but I sidestepped again, swung and knocked him into another bug zapper. "Damn, but that's _good_, uh, comedy. When one of us says to the other, 'You are the J-word.', _then_ it's over."

He guffawed. "Do you really think you can get me—_me!—_to give up the title?"

"Yes. I think I can. I think I, uh, _will_." No more playmates here—not conscious or living, anyway. Where was Gracie? Still in the observation office, where Commissioner Gordon was trying to get the stool away from her. It was too much to expect her to lay his head open with it instead, she still had scruples about things like that.

Bozo was speaking again. "Well, who am I to say you can't make it harder for yourself?" He giggled. "To the throw down it is, then!—I suppose that means I'll have to leave your tongue intact so you can say the words. I'll enjoy making you grovel when you say it... Back to the show! Fresh from Blackgate Correctional Facility, with a combined sentence of seven hundred fifty-two years—It's Round Two! Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding!"

A crash behind me told me that Grace had won the fight for the stool and with the glass. As the other set of bug zappers fizzled out, releasing the other four expendables, first one of my shoes and then the other flew past my ear. "Watch it, Sassy girl! Are you going to help or are you just going to stand around and look beautiful?" I said, using the door as a shield as they attacked all at once. I finally had my shoes, but somehow I doubted my new friends would let me call a time-out so I could put them on.

"I thought I would watch as they hand your ass to you in a swing and laugh and laugh and _laugh_," she retorted. "Far be it for me to tell you what to do, but have you noticed that black box on the wall over there? The one with the emergency light on it? The one marked—Now I _know_ you can read, even if _they_ can't."

Black box. On the wall. Oh. The one marked 'Guns'. And it didn't have a nice strong practical padlock on it. It looked like it could be pried open, in fact. (Institutional suicidal tendencies again.) However, it seemed that some of these goons could read, as long as it was words of one syllable, and one of them ran over there and was already heaving on the handle. "Thanks for, uh, calling their attention to it!" The emergency light was not there just for show. It was flashing and a siren was going off, but since alarms now seemed to be going off everywhere.

I fought my way over to the box, slashing, slamming and jabbing with my locker door, just as the goon got it open. "More firepower over here!" he whooped, before he first realized there was only one gun, (but a nice semiautomatic) and secondly realized a locker door to the face.

Guns are not my weapon of choice, but somehow I knew this night would offer lots of unique and rare opportunities for violence of all kinds, and these new friends were boring me already. So I finished them off quickly in order to get to the good parts. Just like swallowing carrot coins without chewing so dessert would come faster.

Then I put my shoes on.

"Maybe you're not all hot air after all," Bozo said, sounding petulant. "Those were just the warm-up. I've got much bigger surprises in store for you. Aaah, this is simply too, too stultifying. Why don't you just come find me?" The bug zappers on the asylum side fizzled out.

More glass crashed, and Gracie (still tangible and still dressed as Arkham staff) leaped down from the broken window to join me, over the protests of Gordon.

"Shall we?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

"After you," I waved a hand.

* * *

A/N: A short one. Next chapter: Victor Zsasz and Harley Quinn.


	96. Victor Zsasz, Zombie Hunter!

The first evidence of Other Joker was a trio of chattering wind-up plastic teeth skittering around teetering stacks of old files in the office on that side of the force fields. Further down the hall (which I swear truly did look like some 70's idea of the inside of a spaceship) was another set. "He's left us a trail of bread crumbs to follow." I shouted over evergency klaxons and not-too-distant gunfire.

"Looks like." Jay replied. We tore off in the direction of the next set, down a hall where safety gates slid down protectively over office doors as we passed. Here they had actual metal bars, not just energy fields. The priorities around here were _so _screwed up. We passed the dead body of a guard slumped against the wall, turned a corner, and threaded our way down another corridor, around askew desks and endless stacks of old patient files. Not to mention huge pictures of Warden Sharp every ten feet or so. Panicked rats dashed across our path from time to time. I thought we might have gone the wrong way, but now and then, confirmation of our being on the right track, was another set of teeth.

"Plastic teeth," Jay said, sounding disgusted, "I, uh, should have expected it. Y'see, the kind of mind that likes plastic teeth is the kind that goes for, uh, cream pies in the face, and whoopie cushions. _Kitch_." He said it like it was a dirty word.

"Except that in his case it'd probably be poisoned cream and explosive gas in the cushions. Or joy buzzers that have lethal voltage." I said. "You know, if you ever started doing stuff like that, I would lose all respect for you."

"You have _respect_ for me? Since when? Oh, by the way, Gracie-gal, it's _sling_, not swing."

"Come again?" I asked without thinking.

"—Okay, if you really want it now. Up against the wall? Or should we hit one of those cots—."

"Hentai!" I snapped at him. "Filthy-minded, nigh insatiable—." I wasn't really offended. This was just how we interacted. You, oh non-existent reader, can be happy your way with your significant other, and I'll be happy mine.

"Yeah, that's you, but I put up with it. The saying is 'ass in a sling', not 'ass in a swing'."

We didn't really need to talk aloud, but when I was tangible, we generally did. Force of habit, I suppose.

Jay tripped over another body, rolled with the fall, sat up and suddenly guffawed, pointing. "Eve-ry time I think I've seen the, uh, worse around here, it gets lower. The guards' vests aren't even bullet-proof! Why did Bozo even bother knocking this place over? Shooting puppies in a barrel, because that's just what this is, is—um, I don't know, _unsporting_. Too easy to be worth doing."

"Even if it's to get Batman?"

"There they are! Get'em!" roared a henchman, charging around a fork in the corridor ahead. He had a friend with him.

Jay shot them both without bothering to get to his feet. "Even if it's to get Batman. Out of ammo..." He threw the gun aside. "Where's the next gun box? You check that side, I'll check this one." He went down one of the forking corridors and I went down the other.

"Hey? Who is that? Miss, over here!" A miraculously unharmed guard down at the end of the hallway waved his arms at me. "The Joker's loose. It's not safe."

"I know," I said, putting on a Chinese accent. "Did he come this way?"

"Yeah. Look, you oughtta find somewhere to hide—."

His radio squawked, and someone said, "We need back up in Pacification. Zsasz is loose. I repeat, we need back up. Zsasz is free and—Oh, God!"

"Zsasz?" I asked. Another parallel with our world. Zsasz was an inmate of our Arkham too.

"Victor Zsasz. You _really_ need to get somewhere safe! He killed twenty girls over just three months, and that's only the tip of the iceberg—hey, where are you going?"

I wasn't sure myself. There are certain killers whose victims' anger clings to them like smoke to fire, certain special victims, those bound to them by familial ties, and when I am near such a killer I am _compelled_ to—well, there's more than one reason I'm called The Grudge. At least since meeting Death recently I've come to understand what happens and keep hold of myself when the compulsion comes. Which family member or members had Zsasz killed? Was he protected by the laws of Story as Jay and Batman were? I would soon find out.

* * *

It was too bad that Batman wasn't coming—or at least wasn't there yet. Zsasz's skin crawled, needing, wanting, craving the mark he would carve into himself once he killed the Bat. In the meantime, he nicked his bicep to commemorate the zombie guard piggy-wiggy he had just freed from his miserable pointless life, and gazed dreamily at the blade. "I _need_ more marks." he said aloud. "My skin doesn't feel like mine yet."

Long ago, he had permanantly removed all the hair on his body, the better to free up skin surface for more marks. He cut them in the traditional way, groupings of five with the fifth mark slashed diagonally over the first four. One mark per victim. He was approaching a tally of a hundred and fifty, and consequently was starting to run out of body space. If only he had made them smaller to begin with... Four of the longest stood out in sharp relief on his forehead, lacking the cross mark. That one, that diagonal, he was saving for the Bat, so naked or clothed he could gaze at it and _remember_.

Last year, he'd had a crushing blow; one of his victims had the audacity to live, thanks to his employer's infinitely deep pockets, and after Zsasz had already made the mark for him, too! One day he would revisit Alfred Pennyworth, finish the job—and then take Bruce Wayne for good measure. After he killed Batman first, of course.

For now, he was willing to play catch up with whatever Asylum personnel he could find. By mere chance he had found an office whose safety bars had stuck halfway, and so he had dragged the pig in there to have some fun with him. But he didn't yet know how to pose this victim. (Posing the subject after death was a work of art in itself.) Peering under the safety barrier, he caught sight of a lithe figure sprinting down the hallway. A woman, young, in Arkham staff scrubs and bright pink nurse's shoes, a rope of dark hair swishing against her back. Perfect. She would be worthy of his Dark Gift.

"Nurse--oh, nurse, there's a man here who's hurt. He needs your help." Zsasz called out.

She stopped, turned, and hurried over to him. That was one of the many wonderful things about women. They were programmed to respond to the words 'need help', and even when they didn't want to, when their instincts told them not to, they _had_ to.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"In here." She ducked under the bars--and oh, she was lovely. Golden beige skin, _black_ black hair, exotically shaped eyes. She _was_ worthy. "He's here." Zasaz could hardly keep from laughing.

"This man is dead!" she said, checking the piggy-wiggy's vitals.

"Everyone is," Zsasz said, snaking an arm around her neck from behind and bringing his knife up so she could see it. "Nothing matters. No one matters. All you zombies, lurching around your miserable, meaningless lives--I'm doing you a favor, really. Giving you a gift, setting you free--."

"Is that so?" she asked, and her voice was wrong. She sounded cool, detached, even a little amused. "I prefer the 28 Days Later style of zombie myself--all hyped up and rabid. I could never see why people were so afraid of the slow, clumsy ones."

"What?" he asked.

"You killed your parents." she stated, and now this conversation was going places Zsasz truly did not care for. "For your inheritance. Which you then wasted."

"It was an accident--a boating accident! It happened while we were sailing--."

"But we know better." He would have killed her slowly, he had wanted to kill her slowly, but he was so disconcerted that he slashed fast and hard across her throat--.

Except she wasn't there, and he had sliced deeply into his own arm--and his neck. It _hurt_. The man who believed that nothing mattered suddenly realized that something _did_ matter, terribly. His blood sprang forth as though it were eager to get away from him, but it didn't drip or spray, it billowed out as if they were underwater. It was beautiful, spreading out in voluptuous crimson clouds, but he hurt so badly and it was pouring out so fast, and then there she was again, only she was different now. Her hair was loose, waving in the water like ink in a seer's bowl, and her white dress too, like fancy goldfish fins. Her feet in their pink shoes did not touch the floor; she floated between floor and ceiling, greenish in the light.

"I--I need help," he stammered, as the blood spread. Sharks, it would attract sharks, that was why he had been careful not to spill so much as a drop of his parent's blood, because it would be stupid for him to die when he was on the verge of actually living for once. "I'm bleeding and they'll, they'll _eat_ me."

"Why don't you ask that guard for help?," she inquired, and now he saw her eyes were bleeding too. Danger, so much danger--. "I'm sure he had first aid training. Or Doctor Sarah Cassidy, your psychiatrist here, who you stalked and killed. Or your mother and father."

"They're dead! Help me, please!" He had never been cut seriously before, and, and it wasn't as much fun as the superficial marks he made on himself. It wasn't fun at all.

"But I'm dead too. What can I do?" She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Zombies aren't known for their medical skills and helpfulness. Zombies..." she writhed forward toward him, took his face in her hands. For a moment it seemed as though she would kiss him, but instead she brushed her thumbs over his eyes. "You want zombies, I'll give you zombies. Zombies...and sharks."

* * *

I didn't find another gun cabinet, maybe because this area was all offices, so I retraced my steps and went down the other corridor. "Gracie? Come out, come out wherever you are!"

"In here!" She stuck her head out of the wall ahead, and when I got there I found it a stuck security gate and an office with one dead guard, one bleeding but living guy in what looked like serious bondage gear--his pants weren't buckled on him but locked in place--and Grace. There was a lot of blood around. She was watching as the guy in the kinky outfit gibbered and thrashed on the floor. "He killed his parents," she said by way of explanation.

"Okay. This isn't like you, though. Don't you usually, uh, bring on hideous diseases leading to horrible deaths?"

"Yes, but I'm not allowed to actually kill this one, for the same reason that Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul are protected. That doesn't mean I can't mess with him, though."

"Did you find any guns?" I asked her.

"No, but he has a couple of knives."

"Works for me..." I found the blades, wiped them off, and pocketed them. "Time to get back to chasing teeth."

We went back out in the hall and were hunting for more teeth when the airlock doors at either end of the hall made a sound that suggested they had just locked up tight. A bank of flat screen monitors came alive with static. "Not more announcements from the warden," I said, disgustedly. "Remind me to kill him later."

But it wasn't Sharpie. Instead the screechy female voice asked, "Is this thing on?" and we were treated to a picture of jiggling cleavage at extreme close up. "Oh. Hiya! Harlequin here. That's two words, Harley Quinn. I'm Mistah J's girlfriend."

The cleavage moved backward so we could see who it belonged to. She was blond and blue eyed, with her hair in two pigtails and a nurse's hat in between, her face was painted white with two perfect circles of rouge on her cheeks, and she had a little black mask around her eyes. Going south from there, she had on a very scanty Naughty Nurse outfit over a red and blue PVC corset that shoved her tits up almost to her chin, a dog collar buckled around her neck, long gloves in still more red and blue PVC, studded black leather wristlets, and black fishnets under one red and one blue thigh high PVC boot. Her navel was out for the whole world to see, as were her panty straps.

Gracie summed it up. "Oh, look! It's a Rocky Horror Barbie! And it talks!"

I snickered, but Bondage Barbie started as if slapped. "I didn't wear it to impress you! What do _you _think?" She wriggled and posed for me, smiling and batting her eyes.

I said what I thought. "I. uh, have simple tastes, really. I don't mind cheap--but I draw the line at sleazy. And _you're_ sleazy."

TBC....

* * *

A/N: Batwiki says that Victor Zsasz's wealthy parents died in a boating accident when he was twenty-five and he then lost his entire fortune gambling. It seemed to me that given his later career, it was not too much of a stretch that they might have been his first victims. Some people love Harley, some loathe her. I'm going with Harley as she seems in the game. As they say, clothes may make the man, but you can tell a lady just by looking.

Thanks for the reviews! They keep me writing!


	97. Pretty Poison

"Personally, I don't go for the type of girls who charge by the hour, or even just look like they do," I explained.

"I _do not_ look like a hooker!" fumed Harley Quinn. "Do not do not do not! OOOOoooooh!" It was like watching a four year old have a temper tantrum. "You better watch what you say about me, 'cuz Mistah Jay won't like it."

"First of all, does either of us give the impression that we care what 'Mistah Jay' likes?, and second, from what I've seen of him so far, he'd probably laugh too." Gracie pointed out.

"I'm gonna enjoy tonight," Harley said, her mouth doing something hard and mean. "You made me lose my place. Hold on one second." For the first time, I noticed that she was holding the Warden's cane and had his ID clipped to her Naughty Nurse blouse. Tottering off screen on her silly vinyl boots, she disappeared, and a moment later, an office chair spun into sight with Warden Sharp in it, bound and gagged with duct tape. The gag had a red lipstick smile crayoned on it.

"Good start," I admitted, "At least he's quiet."

"Yeah," Harley screeched, reappearing. "I'm now subbing for the old man. He actually thinks he runs this place! Talk about _crazy_!" Putting one knee on an arm rest, she leaned up against him, caressing his bald head and cradling it to her breasts. "Old Sharpie's never been happier, see?" She slapped his face and stepped in front of him, leaning on the cane and flaunting her tits for the camera again. Which meant she was also shoving her ass in Sharp's face. I wondered how he enjoyed that.

"Now the inmates are running the asylum. Well, technically, it's the Joker's goons shipped in from Blackgate, but you get the picture. We've got control of everything—all the gates, all the locks, all the codes—and that means you two aren't going anywhere until me and Mistah J. are ready for you. Buh-bye!" She stepped back, hefted the cane in one hand, swung it, and smashed the camera.

"Well, she certainly told us, didn't she?" Gracie drawled sardonically. "You know, I cannot for the life--or afterlife, either--of me imagine the two of them actually having sex. I'm not talking about that being an image too horrible for the mind to comprehend, but more like trying to imagine a begonia plant and a piece of Gruyere cheese getting it on. I just don't see how it could work."

"Hold that, uh, thought," I said. "What I want to know is, what are you, uh, gonna come up with to top her outfit? Something with more class, but something that's uniquely you."

"Why do you think I would bother?" she asked.

"Hey, it's me, remember? I know my sassy girl, and I know her down to her Shoes. Now, Rocky Horror Barbie may think she has us trapped in here, but she, uh, didn't strike me as being the brightest diamond in the vault. Up there in that wall is one of those vents. I'm gonna boost you up there so you can get the cover off. Because of the two of us, you're the one who can't get stuck or sliced up by fans or mashed flat by a trash compactor, plus you have your nifty floating flaming marshmallow ghost lights to show you where you're going, you're gonna be the one to scout out where it goes while I have a look around here for another way out. Okay?"

"All right." She stood on my shoulders and unscrewed the grating, then slithered up into the hole. "I don't need my lights. There's lighting built in, for some reason."

"Does it seem sturdy enough to hold my weight?" I asked.

"Sure. I'll holler when I get somewhere."

* * *

I heard shouting and gunfire as I moved through the ducts, both close by and distant. I was the right choice for doing this sort of exploring, because there were dead ends (not to mention dead rats) and air circulation fans which blocked parts of it. But it was also boring.

'Find any other way out?' I asked Jay.

_Not yet. Just another duct at floor level that led nowhere. I found somebody's stash of M&Ms, though_.

'And I found three dead rats.'

_Classy joint, this Arkham. I'll save you some of the M&Ms_.

'Thanks. So what are you doing?' I was concentrating on not getting lost, so I wasn't paying that much close attention to his thoughts. However, I had the definite sense he was up to something.

_Well, I found this first aid kit and this little sewing kit, and I thought I would put the two together and try something new_.

'Such as?'

_Doing good. You know, there's something to be said for it, it kind of gives you this warm glow..._

'What precise form is this 'doing good' taking?' To say that 'doing good' was unlike Jay was like calling ice hot and rain dry, or looking for a secular version of the Bible.

_Ministering to the wounded_.

'Which wounded?'

_I've been patching up that guy who was bleeding, the one you said you couldn't kill._

'You mean Zsasz? You've been patching up _Zsasz_?'

_Yup. Took about five stitches to close up his throat, and twenty in his arm_.

'And you did that with a needle and thread someone had on hand for reattaching buttons on their shirt?'

_Not quite. I did it with a needle and thread for reattaching buttons on a coat. They're thicker and sturdier_.

'But they're not sterile!'

_No, no, it's cool. I used almost all of a big bottle of iodine on him, just to make sure_.

'What did you give him for the pain?' I asked, starting to get worried. Had the conventions of Story warped Jay's personality to fit that of a Hero?

_....Aw, darn it! I **knew** I forgot something_. His mental voice told me he was putting me on. _I never tried 'doing good' before, so is it that much of a surprise that I'd mess something up? It's okay, though. He passed out on me after a while. Of course, I, uh, kinda had to kneel on him to get him to hold still_.

What a relief. Jay was fine. Nothing had messed with his personality at all; he had simply engaged in some recreational semi-torture involving a blunt needle, heavy thread, possibly the most painful disinfectant known to medicine, and Zsasz, who deserved it.

_Oh, yeah. For some reason he kept yelling, uh, "Not my brains! Don't eat my brains!" You got any insight into that?_

'He probably thought you were a zombie...Hey! I've finally come out somewhere!' I could see a hallway below me, and a guard--the same guard who had told me to get somewhere safe. I was back where I started. He was wrestling with a pair of airlock doors, and as I turned solid to kick the grate off, I saw it open. He ran through at full speed, a klaxon blaring--. And there, just inside the doors, were three sets of teeth. We were back on Other Joker's trail.

I relayed this to Jay, and sent one of my ghost lights to lead him through the duct. Meanwhile, I jumped down to follow wherever the teeth might lead me, mentally changing back into Arkham scrubs as I did so.

Where they led was to 'Decontamination'. Behind a viewing window, I could see a cloud of green vapor rise up inside the room like a bathtub filling up, and the sound of horrible, humorless laughter. "Oh, God, no!" screamed the guard. In the verdigris-colored mist, I could see human forms convulsing and jerking--before collapsing.

"Environmental Toxins Detected," said the bland female voice that seemed to do all the taped announcements, "Quarantine Mode Engaged." A second shield slid down in front of both door and window.

"What is wrong? What is that gas?" I asked him.

"It's Joker Toxin--it's poisonous. I don't know what to do--they're all dying in there!"

I looked up--at an open maintenance hatch. "Boost me up!" I ordered him. Jay had said it was my job to do all the heroic stuff, and this qualified.

"What?"

"Up, up!" He got the idea. There was another duct in that area, and it led into the upper area of Decontamination. Joker Toxin, whatever it was, (Jay would probably know or at least be able to guess) was heavier than air; it took an awful lot to fill the room and it wasn't uniformly thick. As it rose up toward the high ceiling, it thinned out considerably. Several guards had managed to get up on high cabinets or into the scaffolding that supported the ductworks and the lights, with varying degrees of stability.

"Help me! I'm gonna fall!" called the nearest, who was clinging onto the scaffolding for dear life. I pulled him up, then made a running leap onto the next duct just in time to see a ladder tear loose and smash into something that exploded with a shower of sparks and a cloud of smoke--leaving a guard dangling from the next highest level.

"Hang on, Steve!" shouted another guard.

"I can't! I'm slipping!"

" Hang on! Nurse--you're light, you won't break the catwalk. There's an extraction point at the other end of the room. Steve was trying to get to it." I nodded, ran up the ladder on the other side, saved Steve's butt, then leapt down to the next scaffold, where a Blackgater was also hanging on.

"I can't believe they left me here!" he complained.

I let him hang while I quickly scanned the room. A guard had collapsed while trying to reach a glass-fronted switch box, which looked more like an extraction point than anything else I could see. Taking off a Shoe, I let fly.

It went straight to the box, broke the glass, and started a series of powerful fans going. A moment later, the recorded voice said, "Air purity returning to normal levels. Quarantine mode disengaged."

The guards gave me a cheer as I jumped down and retrieved my Shoe, which was none the worse for wear. "Come on down!" I yelled. "CPR! Crash cart! Oxygen!" There were at least two dozen dead and dying men in the room, guards and prisoners alike. I have, thanks to my supernatural nature, a unique insight into who can be resuscitated and who can't, and a talent for successful resuscitation. Something I learned from Death--how to see when brain death hasn't happened yet. I can't heal, I can't cure, I can't make a bullet in a vital organ go away. As I said, I have only a few tricks, but I make do.

The next fifteen to twenty minutes were very busy. The guards not only found the oxygen, they found something better, one of the staff psychiatrists, an older woman verging on elderly by the name of Dr. Gretchen Whistler, who was of course also an MD. We started working together. Jay wandered in, and raised the guards' hackles until I told them he was with me. I lost track of what he was doing while I helped the doctor, but I do remember him poking around into various cabinets and areas, saying things like, "Ah, crystal violet! Potassium permanganate...What else have they got? Hey, the guys in, uh, red have knives."

Eventually, all the bodies were sorted out into the living and the dead. Not everyone who was dead had died of the gas; shell casings littered the floor, testament to the gun battle that had gone on. I looked down at a very dead Blackgater who was younger than I was when I died, his face covered in clown make-up and his body covered in gang tattoos. What had it all been for, really? Had someone loved him? Would anyone miss him?

"Miss Chen?" Dr. Whistler put her hand on my shoulder. "Coffee?" She held out a cup.

I could eat and drink while I was tangible, although I had no idea what happened to it later as bodily functions had become more or less optional for me. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Please, sit down. Are you by chance related to Dr. Adrian Chen, over in Medical?" she asked as we took seats.

Uh-oh. I _had_ to pick the same last name as someone on staff. "Not that I know of. There are many people named Chen in China." I had maintained my accent throughout. Dr. Whistler had an accent herself; German, I thought.

"I see. What department are you with? I do not think you can have been here long." She seemed like a very nice lady.

"I am a lab tech, and you are right. I have been here only a little more than three weeks." I answered, hoping she wasn't going to check it out. "I was sent over to pick up some samples when...everything happened."

"I'm sorry that you were caught in this. Do you like working in the laboratory, Miss Chen?" Dr. Whistler sipped her coffee, watching me.

"I--it is a good job, and I am grateful to have it and grateful to be able to work here in America and support my family."

"You can be honest with me. Please."

I knew a little about jobs like that. "It is not as I expected--not this place nor the work itself. It is more dull than I thought. Also I do not like the schedule I work very much--and I have worked extra shifts when I was needed, but when I got paid, the money was not there. If I am paid for the hours that is one thing, but to work sixty hours and be paid for forty is--exploitation. But if I complain I may get fired. I do not want to be fired."

"You won't be. Miss Chen, I heard from the young man with the--" Dr. Whistler gestured at her face, meaning Jay's scars, "that you fought off Zsasz and went unharmed, and then I know you came right here and without hesitation, came into a room full of poison gas, cleared it, and then began triage. Someone with such resourcefulness and ability is _wasted_ as a lab tech. I have the power to choose my staff, Miss Chen. I would very much like for you to work here in Intensive Therapy. Whatever extra training you need, I can arrange with the Wayne Foundation, or if you need help with Immigration, that too can be arranged. There of course would be a raise in pay, and greater flexibility in your schedule. Also I promise that you would be paid for any overtime."

I looked into the depths of my coffee. How would Bing Qing Chen (the full name I had imagined) answer? "I would like that very much, but I think that must wait until we live to see tomorrow."

Someone rapped on the wall above my head. "Hey, Sassy Girl. What do you, uh, _think_?"

I looked up. There stood Jay, in his full make-up, white face, black around the eyes, red smeary lips, malevolent and magnificent all at once. And he was wearing a dark, so dark it was almost black, purple suit with a light purple shirt.

TBC...

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A/N: So how did he do it? Perceptive readers will find clues in the chapter.

Thanks for the reviews!


	98. A Legend In The Making

To say that the Arkham people were shocked is a gross understatement. I can only assume that they had developed some kind of ingrained panic response to the combination of green(ish) hair, a purple suit and a dead white complexion. Instantly Jay was at the center of a ring of gun muzzles, their safety catches off, and the guards behind those guns had gone almost as white as his make-up.

"Ah-ta-ta-ta," he said, waggling a finger at them, and then pointing his finger at them each in turn. "Ree-lax, people, relax. I know it's already been a rough night, and it's probably gonna, uh, get rougher, but shooting little ol' me won't do you any good. I'm not the guy who's putting you through the wringer here."

"Then why are you—?" Dr. Whistler asked.

"Why am I dressed and made up like this? Short answer: To piss Bozo off. Longer answer—this is about him and me, and tonight one of us throws down. Which one—you'll have to wait and see. He didn't see this one coming—all his plans were set up with the Batman in mind. He wasn't expecting us."

"'Us'?" she asked.

I stood up. "Thank you for making me that offer, Dr. Whistler, and if I were who I said I was, I'd say yes." I didn't add that given the general disorder, filth, and wretched mismanagement of this institution, I would not work there for any money. "But I'm not."

I shifted from Arkham scrubs and nurse shoes to the party dress and the natural state of the Shoes. Then I went further, through my murder and death, and I did _not_ leave a good-looking corpse. Boiling will do that to you. "I used to be a normal person, but that was before I met Dr. Crane. Now I'm the stuff of nightmares." True, but in a different universe...

"But you'll always be_ my_ dream girl," Jay mugged, putting an arm around my waist and drawing me to him.

"Thank you, my gallant prince of baloney," I snarked at him, just before he planted a big kiss on my lips in the classic Hollywood fashion, despite how I currently looked. (I could hear some of the guards making 'Eeeeww' noises in the background, but others had whipped out their camera phones and were taking pictures.) It was a good kiss, the knee-weakening kind, the kind that usually led to more.

The mood was broken immediately. "When you say, 'throw down', do you mean that you intend to kill him?" Dr. Whistler asked, her aged face severe.

"Kill him? No, I don't _intend_ to kill him. Not that it might not, uh, happen, you never know. I intend to _break_ him. Killing him would be much too easy—and no fun."

"No fun?," asked a guard, "You think something like that ought to be fun—say, who _are_ you?"

"Aaah, names, names," Jay brushed it off, "Jay, like the bird, is good enough. And this is my wife Grace. As for who I am—well, do you think it was chance that she and I wound up here the same night that Bozo got dragged back? Do you think I'm challenging him on a whim?"

'That is exactly what you're doing, smart-ass.' I told him mentally. 'Don't think I'm not keeping track.'

_Yeah, but __**they**__ don't know. I'm putting together a legend here, sassy girl. And they are going to eat it up_.

He was right. I heard one guard say to another behind us "—it has to be the Joker's son, I mean, not that they look that much alike but—."

Another whispered conversation:"—how come we've never heard of this guy or seen him before—."

"How old is the Joker? I know nobody knows but he has to be at least forty-five, fifty. This kid looks like he's on the young side of thirty, so maybe—."

"—everybody knows some people wind up with weird powers where most wind up dead, that could be what happened to her with the fear gas, and they found each other. And _she's_ all right, you saw what she did—."

"—I can believe the Joker would cut his kid's face open like that, he'd think it was funny—."

Jay cut through all the rumor and innuendo. "I'm going after him, and whatever goons of his happen to get in the way, that's their tough luck. I'm not after any of the Arkham staff or guards, unless they're double dipping for him. You have nothing to fear from me. I give you my word—and I am a man of my word."

"He is," I confirmed. "I've never known him to break it deliberately, and if circumstances force it, he goes to any length to make it good." Such as killing someone named 'Harvey' and another named 'Dent' when he said 'Harvey Dent' would die, but they didn't need to be burdened with such details right now.

A few of the guards were nodding now, looking more secure. A few were even smiling. Dr. Whistler was not. "What you are proposing is not only wrong but dangerous. Unhealthy, too, in many ways. Yet I think you know this already, and I do not have the power to stop you."

Abruptly the airlock doors at the far end of the room opened, and over the loudspeaker we heard other Joker grouse, "I'm getting tired of waiting around for you two. Will you get a move on? I haven't got all night!" Beyond the door were, yes, more chattering teeth, and a neon green arrow spray painted on the floor.

"You ready?" Jay asked me.

I nodded.

The guards were clapping and cheering for us as the door locked behind us.

"So," I began as we followed both teeth and arrows down the corridor, "you got the make-up off one of the Blackgaters with a clown face, I guessed that."

"Uh-huh. One of them had the tubes in his pocket." Jay replied. "Plus with all the knives I got off the bodies, my pocket lint isn't lonesome anymore."

"And you dyed your suit and your shirt with the stains they keep around for prepping slides of cells, I figured that out too—but how did you get it all dry so fast?"

"You should have taken a better look around that room, sassy girl. They had all _kinds_ of stuff for killing germs—not to mention their hosts. There were microwave chambers and autoclaves, radiation booths, all kinds of funny stuff. _My_ kind of funny stuff, the kind that, uh, _hurts_ more than it cures. Not in what you'd call apple-pie order, either. Oh—and I also threw this together."

He took out of his pocket—a weird spray gun with a pressurized canister on it. "In about twenty minutes, once the mix has a chance to, uh, emulsify, it'll be a gel that explodes about thirty seconds after you spray it on something. It's not that strong, though. It won't blow up a well-made wall, but if it's coming apart already, that'll be enough. It'll knock a guy down, but it won't blow off his foot or anything else. I thought it might, uh, come in handy."

"You might be right," I replied. "You just threw that together with materials they had there in Decontamination?"

"I just have a knack for it, that's all."

"Blah-blah-blah-blah!" interrupted Other Joker. "You're_ keeping_ me _waiting_, and _I don't like it_!"

Wherever it was he was leading us, we had reached it. There was a neon green Joker face stenciled on the floor in front of the doors.

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A/N: So, should I break this story off from 'Can't' and move it to Crossovers as a stand-alone? There are pros and cons to it. No one would be disappointed or confused by what this is doing in the middle of that story, for one thing. But then it would be harder to find for casual readers, and doing it this way does keep the story bumped up. What do you think?


	99. Icing On The Cake

A/N: Well, I asked and you responded. This is the last chapter of the crossover story-within-a-story that will be posted here in CGYOOMH. All subsequent chapters will be posted as a separate fic under a new title, Involuntary Man's Laughter (was briefly Crashing The Party.) Those chapters which are already here will go away soon. So if you would like to continue reading about Jay and Grace's adventures in Game!Arkham, be sure to bookmark, fav, alert, whatever Involuntary Man's Laughter. Why did I change it? Well, it doesn't work very well if you say it out loud, but if you take out the apostrophe and shove the last two words togther, you get Involuntary Manslaughter. Which I thought was clever.

Oh, and I added a link to an anime clip on Youtube to my profile. Check it out!

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Before us lay another large, grim room like the elevator lobby, with two guard stations, their force field doors still powered up. Several dead men lay around on the floor. A guard rail divided the room in two: beyond it was a deep drop off. In the center of the open area, something like a bank vault hung from the ceiling on heavy chains. Other Joker stood on top of the bank vault, and as we entered, he uncrossed his ankles and stood tall, squaring his shoulders. "What took you so lon—" he sneered, but stopped when he saw Jay clearly. "Oh, so that's how you're going to play this! _Copy-cat_!"

"Uh-huh." Jay said. "Except from my point of view, I'm, um, _not_ copying, and I would never—_could_ never wear my pants that tight. I'm not surprised you can, though." He shook his head, but the subtle implication—that Other Joker was _not_ anatomically correct, so to speak,—passed right over the other clown's head. "And that, uh, giggle gas of yours? More kitch, like those plastic teeth."

"What's wrong with my happy gas?" Other Joker snapped, offended.

"Well, to, uh, explain, I've got to start with a metaphor. It's like cake. Cake is good on its own, but frosting is good, too, so you put some on it and make it extra, uh, yummy. Real frosting, that is, made of simple stuff like butter and sugar and extract. Then somebody decides to get fancy with the frosting, and they put all these swirly blobs around the cake, and maybe make roses, and that's okay too, but then they take it further, and the next thing you, uh, know, there's a 3-D replica of, uh, Washington crossing the Delaware on top the cake, and because butter melts too easy, they make the icing out of all this fake shit with stabilizers and preser-vatives and food coloring that tints your shit funny colors—never eat anything that doesn't get digested on the way through, that's my rule—and artificial flavors, and nobody likes it."

While Jay offhandedly delivered his build up to a blistering critique of Other Joker's work, I took a moment to look at the two of them in the same frame, and it was hard to choose between the two as to which was the more disturbing. Other Joker had the advantage of just looking so strange—his height and thinness alone made him stand out, and his face only added to it, with his long, long chin, let alone his coloration--he was like a portrait by Toulouse-Lautrec. Deformed himself by a bone disease, Lautrec could look at a beautiful young singer and draw her as a simpering, leering corrupted old harridan. Some similar alchemy was at work in the person of Other Joker. Like a two-headed kitten, the sight of him brought on an involuntary shiver of revulsion.

But Jay, who could wash his face and walk almost unnoticed in the everyday world, was equally disquieting. It was partly the scars, of course, and the slouchy way he stood, rounding his shoulders into almost a hunchback, but also his mannerisms and idiosyncratic way of speaking. Add to that his smeary, slap-dash make-up, not to mention that aura of personality, a power all its own, and a different sort of wrongness crept up on you, an intellectual horror, because for all of that he _was _human. He was human, and he might kill someone because he thought it would make for a good joke, and that was horrible. For all that I cared about him, I never forgot or tried to excuse what he was.

"Will you get to the point?" Other Joker needled.

"That's what I'm do-ing," Jay told him. "Your gas is, uh, like the fake frosting--it's crap, only you can't scrape it off and just eat the cake. When you decided people should literally die laughing, you traded effectiveness for effect. That pea-soup fog is barely toxic. How many cannisters did it take to fill that room? Ten? And most of the guys _lived_. My wife's, uh, accessories are more dangerous than that!"

"Well! If you don't like my happy gas, here's something of mine that might impress you a bit more." His voice dropped to a whisper of menace, and he kicked open a catch which in turn opened the 'vault.'

Something inside roared. A massive head and mismatched set of shoulders muscled out, and then it leapt toward us, landing squarely on the floor. "Ooooh, he's a big one, isn't he?" cooed Other Joker.

He wasn't wrong. The first word that sprang to my mind was _grotesque_, followed by _huge_ and _toxic mutant gorilla_. Covered in livid green pustules and about eight feet tall, it looked like something Dr. Frankenstein might have made while badly hungover. Its right shoulder and arm were thick and lumpy with muscle, while the left were normal sized. Conversely, its left leg was like a tree trunk, straining the dirty canvas pants it wore, while its right was only a twig in comparison. Feral green eyes looked out at the world from under a brow like a shelf, and two bony ridges ran back over its skull. Wheezing, it beat its chest, gorilla-fashion, and roared at us again.

'What is it?' I asked.

_What are you asking me for? I dunno. A really weird case of that Elephant Man disease, maybe?_ While we were communicating, the thing shuffled over to the nearest dead guard, picked up the body, and slung it at us.

Jay jumped aside. _What I want to know is, how do we kill it? I don't, uh, know if my knives are long enough to reach any vital organs on that thing._

Seeing that throwing bodies had no effect, the creature charged. It was big and fast, but not especially agile; Jay leapt and rolled out of its way, and I simply went intangible. 'Ugh, did you see its spine?' I asked as Jay pulled himself up again. The vertebra had sprouted up into bony spikes that broke the skin, revealing raw and angry meat. Raw but curiously enough, not bleeding.

_Yeah. Listen, I don't think that, uh, monster is gonna live very long. It's alreadly wheezing like a two pack a day smoker, and if it's deformed like that on the outside then the inside must be worse. If it hits me it'll flatten me like a pancake, but that's, uh, not what's gonna happen_.

'Okay. You have my attention. What's the plan?'

_Did you and a friend,uh, ever play ball with a lively young dog, just to wear it out_? The behemoth beat its chest again and roared some more.

'Yes, but it was a long time ago.'

_Same idea. You're gonna go on over to that side and jump around, waving your arms and yelling to get its attention. When it charges over to you, I'll start doing the same over here. Ah, there's a fire extinguisher, good, I can use that. We'll just keep doing that until it keels over_.

So that was what we did, and it made for one of the more ludicrous battles I've ever been in, and by that time I'd been in a few. I'd holler and wave, it charged over, swinging its hands like flippers, and try to knock me around. Thanks to my intangibility, all it got was frustrated. Then Jay would do the same over on his end, sometimes spraying it in the face with extinguisher foam, which made it even clumsier, and when it had cleared its eyes, I would start in on the jumping jacks again. Although Jay did get winged once with another thrown corpse, he wasn't hurt badly, and after about five or six locomotive charges, it was staggering around the floor with fatigue.

Suddenly it stopped and clapped both hands to its head where large green veins pulsed like they were about to burst. Then it reeled a few steps, grabbed its chest and fell over backward. I could hear its death rattle from clear across the room.

"Well, that was unexpected, wasn't it?" Other Joker asked cheerfully. "Note to self: Need to choose stronger test subjects."

"Shoddy work again," Jay said under his breath, but Other Joker was already burbling on.

"Seeing as how I'm feeling generous, I'll give you this one for free." He let go of the chains and stepped up to the front of the vault, spreading his arms as if for his crucifixion. "Knock me off, I dare you. Kill me. Pull the plug. End this for once and for all!"

Jay shrugged. "Okay," and let fly with a knife, which hit Other Joker in the shoulder and stuck there.

"AAahh!" Other Joker cried out, and nearly did fall. "You hit me! You stabbed me!" He sounded more outraged than hurt as he pulled the knife out. A dark stain appeared on his jacket and slowly spread out.

"You did, uh, ask for it," Jay pointed out, reasonably enough.

"So I did," growled Other Joker. "I won't make that mistake again. I'd just _love_ to stay and chat with you about that, but I have to run. I've got a party to organize. There'll be plenty of other guests flying in from all over Arkham who are just dying to meet _you_, to be sure. You'll see..." The vault which hung from the chains began to move backward, away from us, running on tracks in the ceiling. "You'll see." A pair of massive doors slid apart to admit the vault and clanged shut behind it.

We looked at each other. "Is it just me, or does it seem like he's reading lines from a different script than we are?" I asked.

"One with Batsy as his, uh, sparring partner. But I think he's gonna rework it in a hurry."

There were signs of life in one of the guard booths. "Hey--is someone there?" a young man's voice asked.

"Yes," I called back.

"...okay. Lemme get the security field down before any of them come back."

"So was this a human being?" I toed the huge body on the floor. "He did say 'stronger test subjects',"

"Unless gorillas have started tattooing 'Mom' on their arms, I'd, _uh_, say yes." Jay knelt down and twisted one arm until the markings showed. "And the pants are the same as the ones the Blackgaters are wearing. Don't go getting het up about it, sassy girl. This guy was dead from the moment Bozo gave him the stuff, whatever it was. I gotta say that if this is all he's got, tonight is going to be a disappointment."

"I think not." I disagreed. "There is Scarecrow--and Killer Croc. Who knows what else or who else he's got in his holster?"

TBC....as always.


	100. We Now Return You To Your Regular Fic

This chapter is dedicated to my dear friend Beowulfwulf. Why? Well, because she's great and because I do something that she did in A Psychic among Gotham's Psychos. Luv ya, Beo!

Just to confuse you all, this chapter is NOT part of the gameverse fic. It is back to the regular story line.

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"So who is going to win?" Death's words hung in the air like the chiming of a far-off bell in Dream's inside-out upside-down infinite library. This was the story of my life, and I was the hero--.

"I would say I am," I started, "but under these circumstances, I don't know what winning means. Who plays Jay?"

"Excuse me? Oh, you mean in the movies. An Australian actor named Heath Ledger," the Angel of Death replied.

"Never heard of him." I said.

"In your reality, he never leaves Australia. He works on Australian TV and in movies, mostly bit parts and character roles, and he lives to be eighty. In the realities where he plays the Joker, he often dies before he's thirty." I guess that if anyone would know, it would be Death.

"Then who plays me?" I wasn't in most of the comic books. Given how the Joker usually looked, it wasn't too big a surprise that he was most often portrayed as single. In others, he had a girlfriend/sidekick/henchwench/punching bag who called herself Harley Quinn. (I was hoping I wasn't played by Lucy Liu. Not that I had anything against her, but there are very few female Asian roles in American movies and it seemed like she played all of them.)

"In the realities where you're in the movie, Eugenia Yuan."

"Oh, cool! She's a _very_ good choice." I knew who she was, and while I'd liked her in The Eye 2, I had really loved her in Charlotte, Sometimes. "Who plays Harley Quinn?"

"Reese Witherspoon."

"Not bad." Blonde, perky. I could see that. "What about my Shoes?" Which were not here with me, I noticed. I hoped they were behaving themselves, wherever they were. I was stalling while I thought.

"They too are part of Story...," Dream explained. "The wicked stepmother...who is made to dance...in red hot iron shoes until she dies...Cinderella's slippers, which were fur, _vair_, not glass, _verre_...which only she can ...wear safely...Andersen's Red Shoes, which draw their wearer down to Hell for...using good bread as a stepping stone. The movie which you love... and your Shoes, all one--and the same. The color...makes no difference."

"Oh. Well, to get back to what you asked, I don't know what 'winning' in this case would be. One thing I know is, there isn't any happily-ever-after for us. There's no white picket fence and babies and two rocking chairs set side-by-side in our old age for Jay and me. It isn't possible."

"The omniverse is a big place," Death replied, and handed me a photograph.

I took it, and my treacherous eyes started stinging and leaking when I looked at it. It was a picture of us, of Jay and I and more than just us. I didn't see a white picket fence, but I saw a house with flowers around the door, and we stood in front of it. Jay wasn't scarred, not at all, and it wasn't just that make-up was covering them up. In fact, he wasn't the Joker at all, in any way, and I was alive, properly alive. I was holding a toddler with his nose and my eyes and short dark hair with some goldish glints to it. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl from how it was dressed. What did that matter anyway? Jay's arm was around us, and we looked happy. I cannot express how looking at that little scene hurt, even though I did not want what was in that picture.

I did not want it, which surprised me. Going back to being a living woman again, with all the cares and woes, all the things I had to do and be, just stifling me. Going to work, dressing for success, being a quiet good polite little mouse... How could I cram myself back into that world?

Of course, being what I was had its cares and woes too. Riding herd on Jay (insofar as that was possible) was a full time job on its own.

After I swallowed and was certain my voice was under my control again, I said, "That's only one moment, and life is longer than one moment. Plus there are all the other realities. What about the ones where our car gets creamed by a drunk driver on the way back from the wedding, or I get pancreatic cancer or he runs off with a dental hygenist, or our baby sitter shakes our kid to death? If this is possible, then so are all the others."

"True," Death admitted, "but the only place there are happily-ever-afters is in stories. Otherwise it's just life. And then...there's me. So, the question is, who do you want to win?"

"Everybody...I want everyone to win. Gotham and Bruce-Batman-Wayne and poor Harvey Dent and _everyone_. I want, I want to be happy. With Jay." I would've said I loved him, but 'love' wasn't a complicated enough word for what I thought and felt about him. "Why--Why are you asking me this? Do you do this for everybody?"

"No," Dream said. "But you are...of us, at one remove. You are... Family."

"Say what?" My jaw gaped.

"Um, yeah. That's what I was trying to work up to." Death aimed a cuff at her sibling's head. "_Thanks_ a _lot_, Bro. Y'see--um, I'm kinda...your mom."

I think that under the circumstances I handled the news rather well. No screaming, no reeling and writhing and fainting in coils. I blinked several times. "Okay. This--might explain a lot. But how is it possible?"

"Once every hundred years, I spend a day as a strictly mortal human, so I know what it's like. No two days are the same; I've spent some in palaces, others in poorhouses. I've hidden in trenches on battlefields, walked in beautiful gardens, and everything in between. I'm always a girl about sixteen to eighteen years old, and I always die when twenty-four hours are up. Those are the only constants. Since I spend one day as a human in every reality, at any given time I'm mortal somewhere. In your reality, the day I spent human in the twentieth century was your birthday. I was on a bus going home from Thimphu, and I was very, very pregnant. Then the pains started, and... you were the result."

"Okay...." I understood what she was saying, but assimilating it was another story. "You mean that you sort of possessed my birth mother on the last day of her life? Because it still takes nine months to hatch a baby, or seven with lots of medical support."

"No. It--it's complicated. Before that day, the girl I was didn't exist, but on that day and afterward, I _had_ existed, all the way back, with memories and everything, for sixteen years. You were part of the deal. I don't know why, except that motherhood was one human experience I'd never had before. Even if I only had it for a few hours, I was still glad." She smiled, and it was the sort of smile every adopted kid--every kid, period--wants their mother to smile at them. The smile that says, _You are exactly what I wanted, and I love you_.

I wanted to cry again. "I guess--I guess being normal wasn't exactly in the cards for me."

"No--but not until after you were dead. Before that, you were normal. Of course, dying like you did and where you did, under Arkham Asylum of all places, only amped things up."

"I'll bet. So, who's my father?"

Death sighed. "That's a tricky one. Either you don't have one, or he's a Chinese boy I, ah, spent a day with, but that was over a hundred years before and in another reality besides."

"Well, this is really interesting..." I said. What does one say when one finds out that your birth mother is an anthropomorphic personification? The assimilation, as I mentioned before, hadn't quite clicked yet. "So, what now?"

TBC...

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A/N: This is a note to a recent reviewer.

Dear Freya: (I'd have made this a private message, but you weren't signed in.)

Don't worry, this is not a slam. If anybody slams you, it's not going to be me. I respect your opinion. You tried my fic and found you didn't like it. In fact, you kept on reading a lot longer than I usually do when a fic just doesn't grab me, which is more than fair.

And it's okay. It's like me and bananas. I don't like bananas. I've tried them, and I find I don't like their texture, I don't like the way they taste, and I really don't like the way they smell. I don't see why anybody likes them, but they seem pretty popular with a lot of people, and nobody is forcing me to eat them. Why don't I like them? I don't know exactly, beyond what I already wrote. I love the writer Terry Pratchett, and my husband doesn't. He just doesn't find Pratchett's type of humor amusing. While I found that deeply distressing when he first confessed that to me, I've recovered since then, and decided not to divorce him on those grounds. ;-)

You have every right not to like my writing, and that's cool with me. You didn't attack me personally, you even said my idea was original and that my writing was okay. That was very gracious of you, and I thank you. If you have a particular story in mind which you think could use more attention and reviews, just let me know, and I'll give it a try. Maybe I can suggest ways of making it more popular.

Sincerely,

J-Horror Girl.

PS. To all my regular readers, I've posted a couple more chapters of that gameverse fic, now under the title Involuntary Man's Laughter. Just, y'know, in case you were looking for something to read.


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